Winning Against the Clothing Collection Cheats

Thank goodness that we seem to be making headway in the fight against the bogus collectors.  Now that the authorities are aware of the scale of the problem, how it really harms the business of legitimate commercial collectors like us and ultimately the charities they have instigated a national strategy to tackle it.  Theft or fraud relating to charity bag collections is now officially recognised as a serious crime and the perpetrators are being caught and punished.

The biggest raid of stolen charity bag donations to date in Essex was recently reported in the press and we too have been involved in 5 successful prosecutions, notably in Surrey and Gloucestershire.  Not surprisingly this has revealed that far from being an opportunist offence, there are connections with more unpleasant illegal activities involving gangs and organised crime.

I would encourage others to report any suspected activity to their local police.

Maxine Sault, MD BCR Global Textiles.

Zero Waste

Interesting to hear about the family on Woman’s Hour and their experiment to achieve Zero Waste in the home. The barriers they are up against to make progress like what to do with the stuff that can’t be recycled and how to get the rest of the family on board with the idea of giving up favourite things which are likely to generate too much waste packaging, present an honest view of the challenges.

Meanwhile at BCR Global from the office point of view at least we have stopped any waste arising from our textiles recycling facility ending up in the waste stream and clogging up over-stretched and dwindling landfill. We manage this by sorting and grading all textiles and categorising them into any one of 200 grades to establish which proportion is high enough quality for reuse, which will serve for secondary reuse – mattress stuffing, industrial wipes – and which is suitable for incineration and can be converted via Waste 2 Energy.

I shall continue to listen with interest how the family deals with various materials around the home in the coming weeks.

Maxine Sault, BCR Global Textiles.

Commercial Clothing Collections on the Spot

I was a bit uncomfortable listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 (Wednesday 31st August) as a major charity and a social business went head to head about who was giving more to charity from their clothing collection activities, after all they are both doing good work.

The charity with its own retail shops was concerned that the public needed absolute transparency about the proportion of the funds arising from donated clothing being returned to the charity which turned out to be about 18% after costs were taken out, whereas the social business was giving back about half of that.

I think the important point is the difference between a business with a charity element and a charity with clothing collections as an additional income stream - both have a commercial aspect but the business is providing a service (collecting, recycling and reusing unwanted clothing) which has to be paid for and derive income for the business in order for it to operate in a sustainable fashion.

Not to mention that commercial collectors unlike charities have to pay for the clothing in the first place and there is a premium for unsorted clothes that must be borne!

In the end both parties were able to prove their activities were completely open to consumer scrutiny and they were both united in the fight against bogus clothing collectors who benefit no one but themselves. Hurray for solidarity!

Maxine Sault, MD BCR Global Textiles