How many of those clothing collection bags are pukka?

[XmisterIS]

It seems that nowadays I get one or even two of those clothing collection bags pushed through the letter box every day, and each one with the name of a charity that I've never heard of!

I've been told that some of them are run by Eastern European scam merchants who just sell the clothes for ragging. Is this true?

If the majority are scams, I'm inclined to take my old clothes to the clothing bank that is run by the council in the next village.

 

[mr_cellophane]

How many of those clothing collection bags are pukka?

None





Next thread please

 

[beanzontoast]

In the past we've left stuff out in bags for charities we recognise, but quite often they haven't been collected and we've ended up having to bring them in and work out what to do with the contents. Nowadays we just take stuff to the charity shop in the village instead.

I imagine some of the bags are genuine - it's a shame they are tarnished by the ones that aren't. At least taking it to the shop you can be certain where it's gone.

 

[Fnaar]

I take stuff to local charity shops... usually Barnardos... they give you a card, which you present each time, and they get tax relief on sales. Or something like that... it's to their advantage, anyway.

 

[buddha]

Sales of bin bags must be close to zero in my street, since these 'charity' bags have appeared

 

[accountantpete]

The problem is the rogue "collectors" - which covers anything from stealing the bags before the official collector gets there to "legit" collectors who like to have a nosey through the bags prior to delivering them to their intended destination.

 

[mark barker]

They should have the charity reg number printed on them if they're legit, whereas the dodgy ones have business reg numbers. I've never used either myself, as I take stuff to the local charity shops or freecycle it, but there must be a fair few people donating otherwise they'd stop delivering the bags!

 

[upsidedown]

We had one the other day, in the small print on the bag it said something like"For each bag collected a donation will be made to xx charity". Then it had a registered business number printed where the registered charity number would be on a genuine bag.

Not illegal i suppose but decidedly immoral, IMO.

 

[Maz]

These bags just get used as bin-liners in our household.

 

[scots_lass]

Seems to be the week for charity bags - I have had 3 this week. Actually read the small print on one that was being collected for CHAS, children's hospice and I was SHOCKED. It asked only for good quality clothing and shoes and said that these would be sold abroad and CHAS would benefit to the tune of £60 per METRIC tonne. I did the maths:
A metric tonne is 1000kgs.
A black bag filled with clothes is approx. 7-9 kgs. Say 10kgs being generous.
It will take 100 black bags for a metric tonne. 60p a bag for the charity.
If you take a filled black bag of good quality clothes into a charity shop (say 20 items), they will make a minimum of £60 PER BAG.
Somebody somewhere is making a LOT of money! And it ain't the charity.
The moral of the story is always take your bags direct to the charity shop. Even a bag of rags will net them a lot more money than 60p!

 

[Speicher]

I was fairly reliably informed earlier this week that Charity shops get about £600 per tonne of clothes they wish to dispose of. Good quality cotton will sell for approximately £6,000 per tonne.

The local charity shops are therefore prepared to accept any clothing. They will accept "rag" if it is labelled as such, and then they will know not to bother sorting that bag.

As others have said, there are so many rogues in this business that I would take any unwanted clothes direct to a charity shop.

 

[upsidedown]

Mrs UD works part-time in a charity shop. They do indeed have a rag bag which brings in good money from what they can't sell.

 

[Speicher]

Mrs UD works part-time in a charity shop. They do indeed have a rag bag which brings in good money from what they can't sell.

Do they also get money for un-wearable shoes?

I also take the aluminium foil to the Oxfam shop, where it is collected and sold.

 

[scots_lass]

Do they also get money for un-wearable shoes?

They did in the charity shop I worked in. And handbags.

 

[Glow worm]

These bags just get used as bin-liners in our household.

Same here. We gave up faffing about with these guys as they'd never come back to collect the clothes.