Charity Bags
Is there a charity bag season? If so, then we're in it! After quite a long period with few little plastic bags through the door, printed with requests to be filled with nice things they can sell, there have been lots recently, including five this week!
I thought they were supposed to collect them even if empty, so they could be used elsewhere but usually they don't.
Does this model for charity collections work well? With so many bags, most of them must be ignored or forgotten and then thrown away and no-one has enough stuff to fill five bags in a week!
The Cystic Fibrosis Trust bag which came today says the bag will be collected by a commercial partner who receives a share of the proceeds. This way of operating seems common and it makes me a little uncomfortable. Presumably it must generate enough income or the commercial partner wouldn't find it worthwhile but how much of what people donate does the charity end up with? If people knew the amount, might it affect their generosity?
Sometimes I see bags being delivered, but I don't see the kind of people I'd expect - those who volunteer in charity shops - who are mostly retired older ladies. I see young men for whom it seems to be casual employment, just like delivering leaflets. Does it matter?
I'm going to start keeping a list here.
This week's crop:
1. National Blind Children's Society. Have you heard of them? I haven't. They are working with textile recycler care2collect and will collect filled bags but presumably not empty ones.
2. PDSA (themselves!) collect full or empty bags. That's good but I care more about people than animals.
3. RNLI - 'working with Local Community Recycling Services Ltd.' who offer all they collect to RNLI and get what they don't want; that sounds pretty fair.
4. NSPCC & Clothes Aid (Services) Ltd. I don't know the latter but they say they'll donate at least £75 per tonne of clothes collected to NSPCC. Is that good? Who benefits more?
5. Cystic Fibrosis Trust plus unnamed commercial partner.
What do you think? Do you donate this way? Are you weighed down with charity bags? What do you do with them?
[added] As I said, those five above arrived this week. I have a pile of others including:
5x NSPCC & Clothes Aid (Services) Ltd.
7x National Blind Children's Society and care2collect
5x Cystic Fibrosis Trust & commercial partner
3x Age Concern
3x Kidney Research
3x Help the Aged
1x British Heart Foundation
1x Prama Care
1x Scope
1x RNLI & Local Community Recycling Services Ltd.
1x SOS Children's Hearts Ltd.
2x Europe Family Links, supporting disadvantaged children and families
The best one is 2x 'Helping Arms' which says nothing about it being a charity or who it benefits. It does have a company registration number but no apparent charity number. They have a Yahoo email address!
Bags of bags
Like you, I have problems with uncollected charity bags.
I don't put my offerings to charities into the delivered bags and leave them out to be collected. I prefer to take things to Charity shops in my local town. I have a good idea of what each of the several Charity shops take and sell, so I can filter things into what I think is the best place, which seems to me to be a better and more efficient way of giving goods to charities with a reasonable chance of them actually being offered for sale rather than being ragged or binned.
That leaves me with a collection of the bags that aren't collected from my doorstep, even though I leave them out on the right day and in spite of the promises of the charities. So what's the best and most environmentally beneficial way of disposing of them? I take them to my local supermarket and add them to their plastic bag recycling bin. Is that a good idea?
I'm tempted to post them back to the Charity (without a stamp) but my conscience won't let me do that as it would incur high postage charges for the charity. Has anyone got any better ideas?
No, I don't think that £75 per tonne of clothes collected donated to NSPCC is good. That sounds like the ragging price to me. Charity shops receive clothes etc that aren't suitable for selling in their shops, too worn or dirty etc, so they sell them to be used as rags. But surely any clothes that are of good condition and donated to NSPCC should have a chance to be sold in a shop and re-worn rather than going straight to being ragged?
Unwanted Charity Bags
Hi, I run a company called Sackm8. We specialise in the collection and re-distribution of unwanted / uncollected charity bags.
My previous job was as one of those guys seen on the street collecting the full bags and, yes - ignoring the empties !!
I realised that it must be a massive waste for everyone involved but it just was not practical to jump out of the van for 1 bag now and again,when I distributed thousands per week myself, plus you get paid for full bags, not empty ones.
We now have a team of local collectors and are spreading out nationally over this year to collect your bags.
We collect for 4 major charities under licence but also by default collect all the others, which will be coming on line this year.
If you have any requirement for getting rid of your bags or live in a popular area for receiving bags and would like a regular collection in your town or village, please contact me on info@sackm8.com or ring 0808 2626 269.
Or simply send me an interesting story about what you do with those pesky bags.
[editor's note: please post your interesting thoughts on charity bags here (just click "reply") so we can all read and respond. You could send it to him as well if you like.]
Best value and least waste
I can see the sense in sorting your unwanted items and taking them to the charity shops which will get the most from selling them; they should be pleased that you go to the effort.
I realise that a lot of what's given is not sold in charity shops; some is taken to poorer countries, some is recycled as rags while some is presumably just rubbish. I've seen piles of teeshirts, trousers, shoes etc. in markets in Africa but it doesn't mean the original owner should be disappointed even if someone provides a distribution service and makes a small amount for their trouble. I'm less happy with intermediary companies here at home, using a well-known charity's name and public generosity to generate their revenue.
We all get more charity bags than we could ever fill and they rarely come and collect empty ones, so I'd prefer to see them used as bags for rubbish or storage but recycling is still better than adding to the shameful quantities of rubbish we send to landfill and you can't incinerate plasic.