Welcome to GNAAS Trading Company Ltd

Our business was established by the Great North Air Ambulance Service and is committed to giving 100 per cent of its profits to the charity. We have grown to become the charity’s biggest single donor.

Recycling is our passion. We collect unwanted goods from Berwick in the North, to York in the South, from Whitby in the East to Whitehaven in the West. Our fleet of vehicles is 23 strong, staffed by 54 employees, and based at our two sites at Newton Aycliffe Business Park in County Durham and Skirsgill Business Park in Penrith, Cumbria.

While door to door clothing collections are the main source of our income, we also collect recyclable materials from businesses. Collections include card, paper, plastics, mobile phones and used ink/ toner cartridges. We also run a paper shredding service and have recently opened a discount shop at our Newton Aycliffe site which sells high street goods at up to half price.

For more information about any of our services, and how we can help turn your waste into life-saving donations, please have a look around our website.

Steve Walton - Managing Director

When Steve first arrived at the Trading Company’s Newton Aycliffe base in 2007, the business was operating out of one small unit and was struggling to gain a foothold in a competitive market. Four years later, the Trading Company has more than quadrupled its floor space, and last year was so successful that it donated about £600,000 to the Great North Air Ambulance Service, making it the charity’s biggest single donor.

So, what changed? Well for a start, Steve brought a career’s expertise in the haulage industry to the business and set about maximising the profit to be made from the collections. In mid 2009, the decision was made to change from selling the collected clothing to a UK based clothing exporter. It was a risk. But fortunately, Steve says, the quality of the donated goods meant that there was no shortage of offers. The best came from Poland, and a relationship was forged with two companies which still thrives today.

Steve adds: “The clothing and textiles which are donated is of such good quality that they will buy as much as we can collect. We do not sort it - the bags are gathered and then sent straight to Poland. “The trust is there, and what we ship is known in Poland as green helicopter clothing.”

Steve adds that the move to having total control of clothing sales has seen an increase of 35 per cent in the price the Trading Company are now receiving against the price they were getting before 2009.

Buoyed by the success of the clothing collections, Steve has lead the expansion of the Trading Company which now incorporates office waste collections, a discount shop and an eBay operation. He plays an active role in each aspect of the Trading Company. With an average of 190 tonnes of clothing to ship out every month, the procedure needs to be slick, and that takes a lot of hard work. But Steve says the sight of the green and white helicopter in the sky keeps everyone going.

He adds: “When I see that helicopter flying overhead the hairs on the back of my neck still stand up, even after four years. It knows that what we are doing here is keeping the aircraft in the sky. It makes it all worthwhile.”