It’s just common habit that if something doesn’t work or not needed that it’s put in the bin – in the hope that someone else will sort it. That just doesn’t happen with a product like a mannequin.

Mannakin is a reliable business partner and model and well known in the industry as a mannequin recycler. We are happy to accept mannequins in for recycling, but we also try and encourage retailers to think a little differently, to reuse and renovate existing mannequin stock instead of disposing – which actually just means crushing and putting into landfill. Not the sought of thing any of us want to be doing especially now more than ever with a concious shift regarding (for example) plastics in our oceans.

In 2012, Mannakin received over 20,000 mannequins in for recycling over a six month period. We diverted these from going to landfill by accepting the crazy challenge of saving them and thus Mannakin Ltd joined the circular economy way of thinking.

Many have gone into our extensive hire catalogue, many have been sold and in the case of odd bits and pieces of body parts – these have been snapped up in time for decorating gardens at Halloween.

More ideas have included the popular culture of upcycling – turning legs into tables, or creating lampshade bases. Once the creative flow is going there really are so many different uses. We created a list of 101 uses for mannequins during the lock down of 2020.

This ‘recycling’ ethos within our business is so strong that we totally thrive on this concept and hope to inspire others to join in.

If you are holding a few or thousands of mannequins and are looking to dispose of them, please do get in touch to see how we can work together.

As a method of measuring our processes we use Circulytics, a tool created by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. We are proud to have a score of B+.