These African Artifacts Are Finally Being Returned to Their Rightful Homes

Priceless artefacts removed and looted from African nations during the 20th century will be permanently returned, officials said. mong the artefacts to be returned is a shell-studded statue of the mother goddess Ngonnso’, which holds great spiritual significance for the Nso’ people of northwest Cameroon. The statue has been part of the collection of Berlin’s Ethnological Museum since 1903. The board also approved the permanent return of 23 artefacts, including jewellery, tools and fashion items, to Namibia.

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Scientists Just Shrunk a QR Code So Small Your Phone Would Need an Electron Microscope

If you’ve ever struggled to get your phone to scan a QR code on a wobbly restaurant menu, take comfort. Somewhere in Austria, seven scientists just built a QR code your phone wouldn’t recognize even if it had superpowers. The newest Guinness World Record holder measures 1.977 square micrometers. That’s smaller than some bacterial cells, smaller than airborne pollutants, and roughly one-third the size of the previous record. You could fit millions of them on the head of a pin and still have room for dessert. The tiny marvel was created by a team led by researchers at Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), working in partnership with the data-storage company Cerabyte. They received their Guinness title on December 3, 2025, after the code was independently verified by University of Vienna and confirmed to work. “The structure we have created here is so fine that it cannot be seen with optical microscopes at all,” materials scientist Paul Mayrhofer said. “But that is not even the truly remarkable part.” He explained that while extremely tiny structures are common in modern science, that doesn’t guarantee stability or readability. Making a code this small and functional is the real achievement. The secret was the material. The researchers etched the QR code into a thin ceramic film normally used to coat high-performance cutting tools. Using focused ion beams, they carved pixels just 49 nanometers wide. That’s ten times smaller than the wavelength of visible light, meaning the whole thing is literally invisible without specialized equipment. “With ceramic storage media, we are pursuing a similar approach to that of ancient cultures, whose inscriptions we can still read today,” materials scientist Alexander Kirnbauer said. “We write information into stable, inert materials that can withstand the passage of time and remain fully accessible to future generations.” And the QR code is only the beginning. The team says their method could lead to tiny, ultra-durable forms of ceramic data storage with a far smaller carbon footprint than today’s digital solutions. On a single A4-sized sheet, they estimate they could store more than 2 terabytes of data. A microscopic QR code solving a massive storage problem — the kind of joke nature would appreciate, if it could squint.

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A Surprise at a Walmart Bakery Counter Left This Cancer Patient in Tears

Diane Bennett expected to pick up two simple cakes from Walmart. She did not expect a stranger’s kindness to stop her in her tracks. Bennett, from Greenfield, New York, has been undergoing treatment at New York Oncology Hematology for stage 3 breast cancer. As her final chemotherapy session approached, she decided to bring two cakes to thank the staff who had cared for her. The total came to about $50. When she arrived at the bakery to collect them, something didn’t add up. “I came in to pick them up, and I got them, and I walked away from a very nice bakery lady. And then I realized they said ‘paid’ and ‘congratulations,’ ” Bennett told CBS6. Confused, she walked back to the counter to clarify. “I said, ‘I didn’t pay for these.’ And she said, ‘Well, someone else paid for them, so they’re paid,’ ” Bennett recalled. Days later, returning with a local news crew, she learned the truth: a Walmart employee had quietly covered the full cost. The worker didn’t want credit or recognition. She simply wanted Bennett to have one less thing to worry about on a day that already carried so much weight. Bennett said she hugged the employee, nearly cried, and walked away overwhelmed. “The cakes were $50, so it was quite a significant gift from somebody.” For Bennett, who hasn’t been working during treatment, the gesture landed deeply. “I have stage 3 breast cancer, and I haven’t been working,” she said. “So her doing that was just an amazing blessing for me.” Her treatment continues next with surgery and six weeks of radiation, but she’s carrying the kindness with her. The unexpected gift, she said, has already changed how she wants to move through the world. “I always go out of my way for people. Very rarely do I receive it, but when I do, I make sure that I thank it,” she said. Now, she plans to pay that feeling forward.

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Dog-Sniffing Dog Helps Volunteers Rescue Lost Pets, Hailed As A Game-Changer

If you’ve ever wondered who might be working harder than the average Minnesotan this winter, meet Scout. She’s a black Labrador–Bloodhound mix from Minneapolis who treats her new uniform like it came straight off a runway for Very Serious Dogs. Scout isn’t just dressed for the role. She’s stepping into history as Minnesota’s first dog trained specifically to scent and track lost pets, joining an all-volunteer search crew called The Retrievers. Her vest says “Come Back Home, Puppies,” and she means every letter of it. Her trainer, Miki Carlson, told MPR News, “People call us when their dog goes missing, and we throw out the forces, so to speak.” Last year alone, she said, the group handled roughly 960 missing-dog cases and expects to hit about 1,000 this year. “We basically get the case and then just take it ’til the end, ’til we find their dog.” Scout is training to become their newest secret weapon. The problem, Carlson explained, is that many people wait too long to ask for help. Families often spend days searching on their own before calling The Retrievers, meaning the trail they’re working with is already fading. That’s where Scout comes in. Once her training is complete, she’ll be able to start at the dog’s last known location and follow the scent toward its next stop. According to a GoFundMe set up for her training, Scout is learning commands like “take scent,” “search,” and “which way?” that allow her to guide volunteers through neighborhoods, fields, and wooded areas. Carlson wrote that Scout will eventually be able to follow a scent that’s up to 13 days old. For anxious pet owners, that could mean real hope even after nearly two weeks of uncertainty. “We have needed a trailing dog so many times on Retrievers cases,” Carlson explained on GoFundMe. “With your help, we will finally be able to use the genius of a dog's nose to help bring more lost dogs home.” To MPR News, she added, “It's just going to be a game changer for us.” And she may be right. The group exists for reunions, and Scout is being trained for exactly that: to close the gap between a frightened pet and a worried family. The job may be new, but Scout’s commitment is already obvious. She’s the kind of employee who shows up early, wears the vest proudly, and doesn’t seem to mind when the assignment smells a little complicated.

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This Police Department Adopted a Stray Senior Dog and Gave Him a New Home at the Station

On a freezing February night, officers from the Milford Police Department answered a call about a stray dog wandering alone. What they didn’t know was that the mild-mannered senior they found on a random porch — no tags, no microchip, just a tired face — was about to become their newest coworker. They brought him back to the station to warm up. “During his visit to MPD, we could see he was mild mannered and sweet,” the department said in a Facebook post. After checking the area for an owner, officers placed him in a shelter and kept in touch, hoping someone would come forward. A week went by. No claims, no leads. So the department made a decision they don’t make often: they adopted him themselves, saying they wanted to give him a safe home “rather than leaving his future to chance.” A vet estimated the dog to be about nine years old. “The doc tells us he's around 9 years old, missing a few teeth, one of his ears won't stand up, and he doesn't hear very well, but we're going to give this old guy the best home we can,” the department wrote. It didn’t take long for staff to fall for him. The department says he’s already bringing “smiles and some needed stress relief.” He moves at a slow pace, loves being around people and, as they put it, is “quite a ham.” He’ll live full-time at the station and has already claimed the place as his own. Visitors are encouraged to stop by and say hello. As for his new name? Lil Craig, in honor of one of the officers who first brought him in, Lt. Ed Pilch told WXYZ. The department may have adopted him to give him a home, but chances are Lil Craig is giving just as much back.

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Brazilian Researchers Found a Sweet Use for Chocolate Waste — And It Tastes Like Cocoa

Researchers at State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) have turned an overlooked byproduct of chocolate making into something you can eat, spoon into recipes or even use in cosmetics. Their new creation blends native bee honey with cocoa bean shells, and the chemistry behind it was compelling enough to land the team on the cover of ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. The idea is simple: use honey from native Brazilian bees as a natural solvent to pull out compounds from cocoa shells, which are usually discarded during chocolate production. The result is a honey with enhanced levels of phenolic compounds, antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents — plus theobromine and caffeine, both linked to heart health. Early taste testers say it carries a deep chocolate flavor that shifts depending on how much cocoa shell is added. “Of course, the biggest appeal to the public is the flavor, but our analyses have shown that it has a number of bioactive compounds that make it quite interesting from a nutritional and cosmetic point of view,” said Felipe Sanchez Bragagnolo, the study’s first author. He conducted the research during his postdoctoral work at UNICAMP’s Faculty of Applied Sciences in Limeira, supported by FAPESP. The team is now working with INOVA UNICAMP to license the patented method and find a commercial partner. Part of what makes the project stand out is its sustainable twist. Honey from native Brazilian bees — such as borá, jataí, mandaçaia, mandaguari and moça-branca — contains more water and is less viscous than honey from European honeybees, making it a more effective extractor. Cocoa shells used in the tests were supplied by CATI São José do Rio Preto. Mandaguari honey became the starting point because it struck the right balance in water content and viscosity. Once the extraction process was fine-tuned, researchers applied it to the other varieties and found the method adaptable. “It’s possible to adapt the process to locally available honey, not necessarily mandaguari honey,” Bragagnolo said. The extraction relies on ultrasound. A metal probe inserted into the honey–cocoa mixture generates sound waves that form microscopic bubbles. When they collapse, the brief spike in temperature helps break down the shells so their compounds dissolve into the honey. Because it’s faster and requires fewer steps than traditional methods, ultrasound extraction is considered an environmentally friendly technique in the food industry. To quantify its sustainability, the team used Path2Green software developed by Professor Mauricio Ariel Rostagno, who supervised the project. The process scored +0.118 on a scale of -1 to +1, thanks in part to using a local, edible, ready-to-use solvent — honey — instead of harsher alternatives. Rostagno believes the technique could be a boon for small producers. “With a device like this, in a cooperative or small business that already works with both cocoa and native bee honey, it’d be possible to increase the portfolio with a value-added product, including for haute cuisine,” he said. Next, the team plans to study how ultrasound affects honey's microbiology. Honey from native bees typically requires refrigeration, dehumidification or pasteurization, but researchers suspect the ultrasound process might naturally eliminate microorganisms and improve shelf life. And this may be just the beginning. The group wants to explore other plant residues and expand the use of native bee honey as a green, adaptable solvent. If it works, a lot more agricultural byproducts — not just cocoa shells — could find a sweeter second life.

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Bystanders Heard a Cry in the Woods — and Ended Up Saving a Dog’s Life

Destiny Mesias and her boyfriend, Kevin Pauly, thought they were just passing by Stranger Creek when a faint, desperate sound cut through the woods. It wasn’t obvious at first. Mesias remembers pausing and listening again. “I think there’s a dog over there in the woods, hurt, you know, crying,” she said. Pauly started scanning the area, unsure where to look. Then he noticed the creek’s surface shift. Beneath the waterline, a German Shepherd was struggling to stay alive, wedged between steep, slick banks and too exhausted to climb out. From that moment, everything sped up. Pauly climbed down the bank without hesitating, wading into the creek to reach the dog before it slipped under. “First got there, I just stuck my hand out and tried to talk to him, and then he just whined at me,” he said. He managed to wrap a ratchet strap around the dog’s waist and held its head above water, talking to it to keep it awake. The dog kept fading. “Held his head up a little bit, we just kept talking to him as he kept trying to nod off into the water,” Pauly said. By the time help arrived, the German Shepherd had likely been in the creek for three to four hours. Crews from Leavenworth County Fire District 2 assessed the scene and saw how tough the rescue would be. “The bank is probably 15 feet tall, so we were able to use some ropes to get our people down to the water and get a rope around the dog to get it out,” Assistant Chief Dylan Ritter said. The firefighters hauled the dog upward in a controlled lift. Once on solid ground, its back legs gave out from exhaustion, but the danger had finally passed. Ritter said the rescue felt as rewarding as it was urgent. “It was really heartwarming to know that we were able to first execute the rescue proficiently and get the dog out of harm’s way and for the sheriff’s department and Riverview Rescue to get that canine on the road to recovery and find its owner.” The dog was taken to Riverview Rescue for care. Not long after, the best possible ending unfolded. The German Shepherd’s owner arrived and confirmed the dog had been missing for two days. The reunion was immediate and emotional. “It was really nice to be able to reconnect him. The dad was super excited. The dog was super excited,” said Levi Monahan, director of Riverview Rescue.

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A Book That Took a 60-Year Walk Has Finally Wandered Home

If library books could talk, this one might have opened with an apology and a very long sigh. After vanishing for more than six decades, a 1934 edition of Dogs and Their Management finally made its way back to Darlington Library, where staff greeted it not with scolding, but with a smile. The book was originally due on 8 September 1962. Instead, it spent the better part of modern history tucked away in someone’s loft. The borrower, who recently uncovered it while clearing out, walked it back into the library like a long-lost relative. The title, written by Frederick Cousens, was first published in 1858 and became a staple for dog owners looking for practical, no-nonsense advice. This particular copy survived the rise of colour television, the moon landing, the internet, and at least a dozen redesigns of library cards. A spokesperson for the library said the overdue fee back then would have been two shillings and sixpence. In today’s money, that’s not exactly small change for a book that missed its deadline by 63 years. But the staff kept things simple. “But as we don't charge late fees anymore, we were more than happy to waive the fine,” the spokesperson said. The return sparked a bit of nostalgia inside the building. Staff flipped through the ageing pages, marvelling at the old-style typography and a cover design that looks nothing like what’s on shelves today. Despite its age, the book arrived in surprisingly good shape, likely thanks to spending those decades hidden indoors rather than being passed from reader to reader. It’s not the first time a library has been reunited with a long-overdue title, but this one stands out for its timing. In an era when many libraries have stopped charging late fees to encourage people to come back, it lands as an accidental endorsement of the policy. Without the worry of a hefty bill, the mystery borrower chose honesty over hiding it for another generation. And it leaves librarians wondering what else might be sitting quietly in attics across the country. Forgotten encyclopedias. Old children’s classics. Maybe even more 1930s dog-care manuals are waiting for their curtain call. For now, the prodigal book is back where it started. No fine, no fuss, just a small moment of joy over a very slow return.

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Cosmic Hum May Unlock Secrets Of Universe's Expansion Mystery

If the universe had a speedometer, astronomers wouldn’t be arguing over the reading quite so much. Instead, they’ve spent years wrestling with the Hubble constant, the number that tells us how fast everything is stretching apart. The problem is simple to describe and maddening to solve: different measurement techniques keep giving different answers. That stubborn mismatch has become known as the Hubble tension. A team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chicago thinks they’ve found a fresh way to help break the deadlock. Their new approach uses gravitational waves, the faint ripples produced when black holes collide, to sharpen estimates of the expansion rate. Crucially, it improves on earlier gravitational wave methods that struggled to match the precision of traditional techniques. Illinois Physics Professor Nicolás Yunes said, "This result is very significant -- it's important to obtain an independent measurement of the Hubble constant to resolve the current Hubble tension. Our method is an innovative way to enhance the accuracy of Hubble constant inferences using gravitational waves." Yunes also founded the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe. Daniel Holz, a University of Chicago professor of physics and of astronomy and astrophysics, put it this way: "It's not every day that you come up with an entirely new tool for cosmology. We show that by using the background gravitational-wave hum from merging black holes in distant galaxies, we can learn about the age and composition of the universe. This is an exciting and completely new direction, and we look forward to applying our methods to future datasets to help constrain the Hubble constant, as well as other key cosmological quantities." Their findings, led by Illinois graduate student and NSF Fellow Bryce Cousins, have been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters and will appear in the March 11 issue. The full paper is already posted on arXiv. For more than a century, scientists have relied mostly on light to measure cosmic expansion. One staple technique uses supernovae as “standard candles.” Because astronomers know how bright these explosions truly are, they can work out how far away they are and how quickly they’re receding, revealing the expansion rate. Gravitational waves introduced a second option. Detectors like LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA pick up ripples from colliding black holes and neutron stars. Those waves can also provide distance estimates through what’s called the standard siren method. The challenge is figuring out how fast the source is moving away, which often requires spotting light from the collision or pinpointing the host galaxy. That’s not always possible. Both approaches should, in theory, point to the same Hubble constant. Instead, they disagree. If that disagreement holds, it could suggest something deeper is off in our understanding of the early universe. Ideas on the table include early dark energy or new interactions involving dark matter or neutrinos. The Illinois–UChicago team took a different route. Instead of focusing only on the black hole mergers we can detect, they looked at the countless ones we can’t. Those undetected collisions don’t vanish — together, they create a gravitational-wave background, a sort of quiet hum spread across the cosmos. "Because we are observing individual black hole collisions, we can determine the rates of those collisions happening across the universe. Based on those rates, we expect there to be a lot more events that we can't observe, which is called the gravitational-wave background," Cousins explains. Here’s where the clever bit comes in. If the Hubble constant were lower, meaning the universe is expanding more slowly, the observable volume would be smaller. That would pack black hole collisions into a tighter space, which would increase the background hum. If detectors don’t pick up a hum that strong, researchers can rule out those slower expansion rates. They call the technique the stochastic siren method. With current data, they used it to eliminate particularly slow expansion scenarios. When they combined their new method with existing measurements from individual black hole mergers, they produced a more precise estimate of the Hubble constant. Their result still sits within the disputed range, but it shows the method can help tighten the numbers. As detectors get more sensitive, this strategy could become even more powerful. Scientists expect the gravitational-wave background to be detected within roughly six years. Until then, stricter limits on its strength will keep squeezing the possible values of the Hubble constant. "This should pave the way for applying this method in the future as we continue to increase the sensitivity, better constrain the gravitational-wave background, and maybe even detect it," Cousins says. "By including that information, we expect to get better cosmological results and be closer to resolving the Hubble tension." The project relied on the Illinois Campus Cluster and received support from the NSF, NASA, the Simons Foundation and several fellowship programs.

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Two Students Met on University Welcome Week — Now, They’re Redefining Fashion as a Force for Care

Maria Alex and Maryam Muayad walked onto the McMaster University campus expecting classes, clubs and the usual Welcome Week chaos. They didn’t expect to meet the person who would become a best friend, roommate and co-founder. But something clicked immediately, they say, and within weeks they realized they shared the same instincts: a love of fashion, a drive to serve their community and a need to do something meaningful in the middle of demanding academic programs. Now in their second year, Alex in Honours Health Sciences and Muayad in Honours Life Sciences, the pair runs StyleCycle, a student-led non-profit that has grown far beyond the conversation that sparked it. What started as a chat about clothes and community need has turned into a multi-branch effort that blends sustainability research with hands-on support for Hamilton families. Through volunteer shifts across the city, they kept noticing the same thing: families wearing clothing that was worn down, poorly fitting or wrong for the weather. They saw children without warm shoes and parents making do with damaged coats. Plenty of organizations collect clothing, but the pair felt something deeper was missing. “What we do is fashion for good,” says Alex. “Our hope is to bring dignity and style to women and children living in shelters. We believe that how you look can transform how you feel, and everyone deserves that kind of confidence.” So StyleCycle goes further than handing out clothes. They build outfits. They wash each piece, mend small flaws and pair items in a way that feels intentional. A sewn button or hemmed pant leg doesn’t just extend a garment’s life – it reflects their belief in circular fashion and dignity. “What makes a difference is giving someone an outfit, not a random shirt,” Alex says. “If you donate an orange top on its own, what can someone do with it? But if you pair it with a brown skirt, suddenly it becomes something people reach for.” Their curated racks at places like The Baby Depot let families browse, choose and leave with full outfits that feel assembled with care. Their STEM backgrounds play into the work too. After taking a first-year elective that introduced concepts like embodied carbon and the circular economy, they realized their overflowing donation closet held something else: data. So they began weighing garments, estimating surface area and applying carbon-emissions methodologies to measure the environmental impact of keeping clothing in circulation. “We thought, we have so much data, what if we start quantifying what we’re doing?” Muayad recalls. Their first posters and abstracts are already finished, thanks in part to skills developed during summer research placements with the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA) for Alex and NSERC for Muayad. Now they’re preparing papers exploring youth social psychology, sustainable fashion behaviour and emissions reductions through reuse. “It’s been amazing because making posters, presenting them, writing an abstract – these are things that can be intimidating for a student at first. I remember our first conference, we didn’t even know where to print a research poster,” Muayad says. “But because we had the skills from our summer research placements, we could implement it for StyleCycle.” While donating styled outfits through The Baby Depot, they noticed another gap. Supports focused heavily on newborns, not the mothers caring for them. The turning point came when they overheard moms joking about turning baby clothes into makeshift diapers because hygiene supplies were so expensive. The joke masked a serious need. “We were helping with clothing – but what about the essentials you can’t reuse, like diapers or shampoo?” they wondered. So they committed to assembling more than 50 hygiene kits for mothers and newborns before the holidays. Without funding, they turned to creative fundraising. Between midterms and research deadlines, they taught themselves to crochet and made festive keychains to sell at local markets. They added baked goods and McMaster-themed stickers, raising $300 across three events, including McMaster’s Holiday Market and Entrepreneur Week. “I remember there were days during midterms where I’d knock on Maryam’s door and say, ‘Maryam, do you have time? Let’s crochet!’ And we would just sit there and make them, one after another. But we would have a whole pile at the end,” says Alex. The fundraiser covered everything they needed for the kits, each containing three items tailored either to mothers, like breast wipes, or babies, like diaper rash cream. Parents visiting The Baby Depot during the holidays received one to take home. The impact didn’t end there: The Baby Depot has since launched a hygiene drive of its own and is exploring a new programming branch inspired directly by StyleCycle. With StyleCycle expanding, Alex and Muayad hope to reach more Hamilton families and partner with more community groups. Their closet is full, so they’re not looking for clothing donations. Instead, they want connections to clients and organizations who could benefit from outfit styling, youth fashion workshops or future hygiene-focused initiatives. For both students, the project has become the thing that keeps them grounded. “We feel that StyleCycle is our outlet. Truly, this is our passion project. We’re not doing this one time and then walking away,” says Muayad. “We have big plans to keep going.”

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Young Shoppers are Driving a Thrift Store Sales Boost Amid Secondhand Fashion Trend

Charity shops across the UK just had a surprisingly strong year — and they largely have Gen Z and secondhand fashion culture to thank. Inspired by platforms like Vinted, Depop, and even eBay, young people are flocking to brick-and-mortar charity stores in search of vintage finds, sustainable fashion, and unique pieces they can’t get anywhere else. Save the Children saw retail sales rise 3% last year, including an 11% jump in December alone — raising more than £1 million for its programs. That growth outpaced the charity retail sector as a whole, which rose 1.4%, and even beat the wider UK non-food retail market, which grew 1.1%. Allison Swaine-Hughes of the British Heart Foundation says secondhand platforms have only strengthened the public appetite for preloved goods: “There’s strong demand for quality preloved items,” she noted, adding that in-store transactions are also up. Charity shops aren’t immune to financial pressure. Higher employer national insurance, rising minimum wages, and lower prices for “rag” material have squeezed profitability. Some charities, like Scope, have even been forced to close stores. But the picture isn’t bleak. Robin Osterley of the Charity Retail Association says it’s more a period of consolidation than decline. Overall retail floor space occupied by charities actually grew nearly 6%, with more organizations opening larger-format stores to offer better selection and experiences. Online charity retail is expanding too, and many shops now use clearance rails, £1 sections, or specialist resale sites to keep unsold items moving. One of the most encouraging trends is the surge in young volunteers. At Save the Children, 42% of new volunteers last year were ages 18–24, pulling the charity’s average volunteer age down to 28. Younger volunteers help sort more donations, spot vintage gems, and curate store displays that appeal to student neighborhoods or city shoppers. And their presence draws in more young customers — a sustainable fashion feedback loop. “We are seeing an increase in younger people interacting with our shops, whether that is shopping or volunteering,” said director Ian Matthews. “Younger people want to buy more sustainably and are more conscientious about how they spend their money.” Platforms like Vinted and Depop do mean some donors choose to sell high-quality pieces online instead of giving them away. But Matthews says the public remains generous, and the competition has pushed charities to level up their approach. “The market is so much bigger, and it’s making us really step up our game,” he added. Bottom line: sustainability is in, secondhand is cool, and charity shops are riding the wave — powered by the young shoppers and volunteers redefining how the UK buys fashion.

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