Clean Trade

29/10/2026

The opportunity for people to choose beautiful, quality clothing in exchange for tokens earned by cleaning the environment, is the most heartwarming experience 😊

Thank you Iconic Clothing & everyone who has donated pre-loved clothing ✨️♥️

18/10/2026

If you've been part of the Union family for a while, you'll probably be familiar with '𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘨𝘦' - a spot on campus where our learners toss their empty plastic bottles during the school day.

Well, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿 looking after it!

We're pleased to share that Union High School, Graaff-Reinet 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗽 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 Clean Trade to give our recycling efforts a little extra support.

Clean Trade has now taken over the management of our recycling cage, helping us make better use of a facility that's already part of our school and encouraging our learners, staff and wider school community to be a little more mindful of what we throw away.

It's a simple partnership, but one that we hope will make a meaningful difference over time.

After all, 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘺𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 and small habits, when practised by an entire school community, can really add up.

𝗔 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 for coming on board and helping us do our bit for the environment.

So, next time you have an empty plastic bottle or recyclable tin, 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗴𝗲!

𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦'𝘥 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺.

16/10/2026

🎉 LOOK WHAT WE GOT! 🎉

Sometimes, dreams grow bigger than you imagined — and when a community comes together, amazing things happen! 💚✨

Boundless gave us the space to bring our dream, Clean Trade, to life. Then, more recently, they gave us even more space, including a little derelict prefabricated building. And, of course, we started dreaming again! ✨

We began exploring the costs of repairing the building, wondering how we could turn it into something useful. And then… Montego Cares stepped in! 💪🏼💚

Not only did Montego Cares arrange for the building to be repaired, but they also helped us keep our recycling ethos alive! ♻️
Old tables were repurposed to secure the walls where they had been compromised, including the area where the door was removed for repositioning. Practical, creative, and sustainable! ♻️

Montego Cares, you absolutely rock! 💚

And now, we have a dedicated separate space for our clothing trading area — a place where our traders can browse for those special finds and decide how to spend their hard-earned tokens. 🛍️👖🧥

🎉 Another dream becoming reality! 🎉

A heartfelt THANK YOU to Boundless for believing in Clean Trade from the very beginning, and to Montego Cares for partnering with us, believing in our vision, and helping us grow our impact. 🫶🏼

Together, we are creating more opportunities to promote recycling, dignity, and development — one step, one partnership, and one dream at a time. 🌱💚

This is what community looks like. This is what community can achieve. 🌟👏

Together, we are making a difference! 🥳♻️💚

#

16/10/2026

Don't miss the fun this afternoon!

Get ready to get messy! 🌈🎉

The Tri The Karoo Colour Run is back! Join us on 16 October at Union Fields for an afternoon packed with colour, fun and good vibes for the whole family.

🏃 5PM Start
🎨 R80 per entry
📍 Union Fields
💙 80% of entries given back to the community, supporting GRAWS , Clean Trade & Union High School, Graaff-Reinet (The Union Schools)
🎟️ Entries available on the day

Bring your friends, bring the family, and get ready to paint the Karoo in colour!

Want to book a spot ahead of time? Enter here: https://entries.trithekaroo.co.za/

03/10/2026

🎂 BIRTHDAY MONTH WRAP-UP! 🎂🎉

As September makes way for October, we’re taking a moment to look back on an incredible Birthday Month — and what better way to celebrate 2 years of Clean Trade making an impact than by celebrating the people who make it all possible! 😃

Here’s a little snapshot of what our celebrations looked like…

🤝 We celebrated our incredible volunteers — the amazing people who are our boots on the ground, bringing the vision to life and making sure Clean Trade can do what we do! 💚

🌍 We cared for our environment with an exciting clean-up, made even more special through fantastic collaborations — and, of course, YOUR incredible support! ♻️💚

🍲 We cooked, we shared, and we paid it forward! Using product YOU donated, we were able to feed some of the little leaders of the future. 🍛💚

‼️Our infrastructure grew! Thanks to YOUR generous cash donations, Clean Trade now has a shipping container for storing the generous product donations that keep coming our way! ✨👏🏻

And really, that’s what this birthday celebration was all about…

YOU. 🫶💚

Because every volunteer, donor, partner, collaborator and supporter has played a part in helping Clean Trade reach this milestone. 2 years. So much impact. One incredible community. And we did it TOGETHER! 🎉💚

Now, bring on Year 3! 😃💪🏻

We’re excited for everything that lies ahead and can’t wait to continue creating meaningful impact in our community and environment — facilitating recycling, dignity and development along the way. 🌎🥫💚

So keep your eyes on this space… and keep partnering with us! ♻️
There’s so much more to come! 🥳

24/09/2026

🎂🎉 MORE EXCITEMENT FOR OUR BIRTHDAY MONTH!!! 🎂🎉

And once again… YOU, our incredible Clean Trade community, made this possible! 💚✨

🥁🥁.........🚛 WE HAVE PURCHASED A CONTAINER!!!!!! 🚛

Yes — a whole container! 🎉

And it’s not just a container… it represents two years of support, collaboration, generosity and hard work.

We are now HALFWAY to our BIG goal of TWO containers — and we are celebrating that! 🥳

Because just look at what has happened in only 2 years…
✨ One step at a time.
✨ One partnership at a time.
✨ One donation at a time.
✨ One community at a time.
And always with your help. ❤️

This container will provide much-needed storage space for product — and honestly, how incredible is THAT?!

A very special THANK YOU to Tyremart Graaff-Reinet for providing us with temporary storage space AND for giving us a place to ‘park’ our new container. What a gift! 💚

Once again, it is collaboration + community + commitment that allows Clean Trade to grow our reach and deepen our impact.♻️💚

So, this birthday month, we’re not just celebrating another year…
🎉 We’re celebrating YOU.
🎉 We’re celebrating progress.
🎉 We’re celebrating partnerships.
🎉 We’re celebrating what is possible when a community comes together.
We continue to facilitate recycling, dignity and development.
Together. 💚♻️

Thank you for helping us get here.
And thank you for being part of where we’re going next! 🚀💚

09/09/2026

🎉The Birthday Fun Continues! 🎉

What better way to celebrate a birthday than by giving back to our beautiful community and our environment! 🌍♻️

Clean Trade was founded with two important goals at heart: tackling environmental pollution while also addressing unemployment and hunger in our community. 💚

So, as part of our birthday celebrations, we were thrilled to collaborate with Imibala Trust, Vuyani Safe Haven - Graaff-Reinet - South Africa and Great Karoo Wilderness to combine education with action — teaching our young people about environmental pollution and then getting stuck in to make a real difference! ♻️

On Thursday afternoon, more than 50 enthusiastic children from Imibala and Vuyani, together with wonderful community volunteers, took on the challenge of cleaning the picnic area on the outskirts of town, towards the dam.

After a quick and eye-opening educational talk, the children were shown how pollution affects our rivers, oceans and animals. 🦅🐟🐘

Then it was time to put that knowledge into action!

Divided into teams, with a volunteer accompanying each group, the children hit the ground running.

There was energy, enthusiasm, teamwork and plenty of healthy competition as bags quickly filled with rubbish. ♻️

And what made the afternoon even more special was the incredible support from our community. ✨💚

A HUGE shout-out to:
• ISU-Rommel for collecting all the bags of rubbish
• Frontiers Restaurant for sponsoring rolls for the children
• Merino Slaghuis and Venter's Game & Biltong Deli for sponsoring the sausages
• Jenni Bamber of Computer Lab for donating delicious chocolate brownies for everyone
• Polyco PRO NPC for providing the wonderful goodie bags for our winning teams.

The competitive spirit was alive and well, with Vuyani presenting goodie bags to the winning teams!🏆💚

What an incredible way to celebrate — educating, empowering, cleaning up and having FUN together! 🎉

A birthday celebration with a difference… because the best celebrations are the ones that leave a positive mark on the community, not on the environment. 🌍

Thank you to every child, volunteer, sponsor and community member who helped make this day such a success.

Together, we really can make a difference! 💚💚

05/09/2026

🎉 *Celebrating our birthday with gratitude, giving, and a whole lot of heart!* ❤️

As part of our birthday celebrations, we had the privilege of preparing and serving a special meal to the children at Tinkerbell ECD. It was our way of saying thank you for all the support we have received. 💚💚

Thanks to the generous products and funds we received, we were able to cook up a delicious meal of smash with chicken liver and vegetable stew, served with cocoa milk and a colourful fruit salad. 🍛🧋🍐

But the celebration didn’t stop there! Each child also received a toothbrush together with soap or toothpaste. 🪥🪄

We chatted to them about the importance of taking care of their teeth, and they delighted us by singing a catchy little song about brushing their teeth. It was clear they have been taught well! 😊

What a heartwarming way to celebrate — seeing the next generation being nurtured, cared for, and given a strong educational foundation to prepare them for school. ✨

We are so grateful to everyone who has supported us and made moments like this possible. ♻️💚

But we’re not done… There’s more celebrating, sharing, and giving to come, as we continue marking this special milestone together! 🎂♻️

07/08/2026

This is how we clean, sort, and create our statistics every week ♻️♻️

Another month of trading has come to an end. A month of hard work creating a cleaner environment. A month of providing for the unemployed and vulnerable—with dignity.

Every month adds to our growing impact…

From October 2024 to July 2026—23 months of trading—Clean Trade has created meaningful change:

♻️ Almost 137 tonnes of recyclable waste diverted from landfill.

🧴 Of this, more than 54 tonnes are plastic bottles, given a new life. (Did you know each plastic bottle can be recycled and reused up to 20 times?)

And while the environment is being restored, families are putting food on the table 🍞💚

And this is what the shopping experience looks like for those whose hard work gives these statistics meaning and value 💚

In these 23 months, 7 619 traders have cleaned, sorted, and shopped—taking food and clothing home, with dignity.

A safe space has been created for 1,767 people with disabilities to participate, providing for themselves or their families—perhaps for the first time ever.

Of those served, 58% are female and 42% are male, while 99% of our traders are unemployed. These are individuals who now have purpose and a way to bring food home.

Clean Trade is a community. These statistics could never be achieved alone.

Thank you to everyone involved—so many wonderful people and organisations, contributing in so many different ways—all working together to create the change we need 💚

For the environment. For the unemployed. For the destitute. ♻️

18/07/2026

🇿🇦Make every day Mandela Day!

✨At Clean Trade we celebrate the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela today and every day that we work together to make a difference in our community and the lives of the marginalized. 🇿🇦♻️

Because "It is in our hands"! 🫶🏻🇿🇦