Clothes collection... not needed?

Spendless

and the scam ones are where it is a business or if it doesn't say either? Sorry if I'm being dim here. I'm aware a very well known charity collection is a franchise, as several years ago DH fearing he'd be made redundant, looked into ideas for his own franchise and this one was in the booklet he had.

fengirl_2

Some charities do employ commercial companies to collect goods on their behalf. Often the commercial company will sell the goods and give a proportion of the proceeds to the charity. They have to say what %age of the proceeds go to the charity and there has to be a formal agreement between the charity and the commercial operator. You can check that the charity registration number shown is kosher by checking on www.charitycommission.gov.uk. If in doubt, there is nothing to stop you checking with the charity in whose name the collection is being made - charities and the CC can and do take action against scam collectors.
Personally, I would always take unwanted goods straight to the charity or its shop.

DKLS

ahai1 wrote: »

You can also give all the bad stuff away which goes to the rag trade.

You'd be amazed at what goes through the rag trade, I have seen plenty of clothes with tags still atatched, a lot of the legitimate charities, use rag mills to take the bin bags full of clothes. The rag mill pays anything between 7-15p a kilo.

The clothes would then be graded, and usually certains styles/era/brands etc would be "saved" by the rag pullers to be looked over by an assortment of Vintage dealers and market traders.

Whats still wearable is shipped to Nigeria, whats left is ground up to make fillings for beds, and wipers for industry.

You could say its the ultimate in recycling.

JCD_Capulet

Spot on DKLS. It's something to consider when folk are having a clothes clear out. If you have clothes that are ripped/buttons missing/broken zips/stained etc you can still hand theese into your local charity shop!

If you put all the rag clothes in a seperate bag from useable clothes and let the charity shop know you are donating rags, they get paid by textile recycling companies (who already take away all the rags they recieve) £X per kilo. So even though you think some clothing might only be suitable for the bin, it can still raise money for charity

ChelseaGirl

My son's primary school does a clothing collectin twice a year. The company supplies enough collection bags for all the pupils to fill, and then comes to collect all the donated clothes, linens etc from the school hall on a pre-arranged day. The school gets so much per tonne, and we raised £120 (which went to the school) last time. So it was a great fund raising exercise, and a great recycling exercise for the children.

purepink

I've always found 'word of mouth' the best way to find out which charity has the biggest need. I recently found out about a charity in Hereford, which was collecting 'anything' for families in Romania who had 'nothing'. I decided I would have a collection week and asked all of my clients to bring their unwanted things to my house. I filled the garage and the charity came from Hereford to Gloucester this week, to collect them. The donated goods filled a whole van! Whilst here, the charity showed us a dvd of the area of Romania they go to and the people who receive the goods. It was heartbreaking.
Church groups will often take goods for distribution in the local community. Women's refuge Centres quite often need women's and children's clothes. It does take a while to establish who needs what, but those with a real need will move heaven and earth to arrange for goods to be collected from you!