We get loads of these, 2-3 a week, never use them, we don’t have that much stuff.

I’ve been out and about earlier than normal this last week and I’m sure they’re just being pinched.

Last week I saw a plain white Polish plated Transit with two young lads picking British Heart Foundation bags up about 7:30am down our road.

Yesterday I saw a chap in a Black people carrier pull over and start slinging the Shelter bags in the boot, he ‘looked’ a bit suspicious, looking up and down the street. (disclaimer – I may not be Columbo) I asked him if he worked for Shelter, he said, he helps out, got in and drove off up the road.

Am I jumping to conclusions? Seems a bit too easy really, the people don’t want the stuff anymore, the charity don’t know it exists and it’s all nicely laid out on the pavement for picking up.

We also get tons of them. When reading the small print, most of them seem to be a fabric recycling business that’s giving some profit (must be fairly small) to the charity. There was one exception round our way though – but forget which one. We did put out a few but no-one ever came for them.

I’d rather (and do) take the whole clothes to charity shops. The bags can be binbags.

I take the view that most of them are scams. On the upside, it saves me 5p.

I saw a lady trying to pilfer a clothing bag get spotted by a neighbour, she gave her a right mouthful (neighbour to the would be thief).

As molgrips says I think most of the bag through letter box setups only give a little (if anything actually makes it) to charity. If you want to donate it take it to the shop, or you can get it weighed in yourself.

I’m just glad to have someone (anyone) who’ll take it away

The other week next door left a microwave out for the scrap man and some random stopped and drove off with it 🙂

Charity bags are binbags except the BHF ones that get dumped in the shop in town. Would never donate to them for the simple reason that it must cost a fair whack to drop that many bags and I’d rather not encourage it.

Massive scam. Read the small print on them or google the companies.
The vast majority are private companies that make a tidy profit off recycling the clothes then (theoretically) donate a small percentage to the named charity.

Use them as bin liners without shame.

Seems a bit too easy really, the people don’t want the stuff anymore, the charity don’t know it exists and it’s all nicely laid out on the pavement for picking up.

The charity do know the bags are out there – they know how many bags they’ve put out and where they’ve put them and when they’re due to be collected. Many moons ago I used to do the drop off and collect of the bags – the shops would be choosing the streets for them to be dropped off at (500 bags per drop) and they’d be collected a set number of days later at a stated day and time that would be printed on the envelopes the bags are delivered in. Although the streets had been pre-selected I would knock on doors every few dozen addresses to check people hadn’t had to many other charities leaving bags recently

They normally try to keep the collection window pretty brief (I wasn’t to start collecting the bags before 10am, but I had to get round 500 addresses and be unloading at the shop by 1pm) and the literature encouraged people not to put the bags out long before they were to be collected. If you’re seeing bags being collected in the early hours then (I’d except) they pretty much certainly are being nicked, as the charity wouldn’t set a collection time so early that people would have to leave the bags out overnight.

When I did that kind of work the drivers / collectors were all freelance and used our own vehicles. So don’t expect either the person or the vehicle to be uniformed or liveried.

If you have a concern that bags are being stolen call the nearest shop branch of the charity concerned, they’ll know who should be out there collecting.

When reading the small print, most of them seem to be a fabric recycling business that’s giving some profit (must be fairly small) to the charity.

When I did it -appointed directly by the charity and taking the bags to the nearest shop to where the bags were donated where they went straight on sale – I was still getting paid to do it. I’d never bother doing the sums (its too variable as to what the saleability and value of any collection would be anyway) but the sale value would always have the cost of me collecting it and the managerial cost of co-ordinating that collection deducted from it. And that was a cost the charity was bearing speculatively – the cost of collection was the same regardless of how large or small and how saleable the donations were. If the charities concerned in Molgrips’s example have consented to collections being made that way – that a third party collects and makes a cash donation – then thats probably the most effective and worthwhile way of doing it for those charities. There are quite possibly smarter and more profitable routes to market for those donated goods and if the net result is donation thats of higher value (or realised at lower cost) than the charity collecting and selling themselves then thats all good

Massive scam. Read the small print on them

Scams don’t usually have small print

We’ve got 3 charidee shops within 1/2 a mile (YMCA, Oxfam & Leonard Cheshire). 99% of our useable but uncarbootable stuff goes to Leonard Cheshire.
Thanks for the extra bin bags though, whoever you are.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2007/aug/18/moneysupplement.voluntarysector

http://www.charitybags.org.uk/how_to_tell_if_a_clothing_collection_is_genuine.shtml

No doubt some are genuine maccruiskeen, but we often get two or three a week. I default to not trusting any of them and giving direct to charities and charity shops myself.

the bags were donated where they went straight on sale

As I said, some of them are run that way (I think BHF) but all the others we received weren’t. They were fabric recycling businesses, so the clothes you put in get shredded and made into paper. It said this on the bag.

And we also got maybe three to five a week for a couple of years. How many spare clothes do you think we have ffs?

There used to be a company our way that did it on behalf of charities. They would fill a container and sell it to Eastern Europe or It would end up in Africa on market stalls. The charities got a very small percentage. Sort of business that I really don’t like.