We have seen this before where Clothes recycling bins from dubious unknown charities or private companies, appear in car parks of pubs, supermarkets and other business, often without any permission being obtained. This has been happening recently, in Swindon where purple clothes recycling bins have appeared, from a company known as Monster Recycling, see this Swindon Advertiser article here.
Now after hearing about this on BBC Radio Wiltshire, I remember passing a purple recycling bin in the lower Sainsburys Carpark in Calne, that had seemed to appear in recent weeks, and lo and behold it is a Monster Recycling one as mentioned in the Swindon Advertiser.
Now Monster Recycling appears to be a legitimate business, although out of the 10000 business on the UK Governments Companies House website, that have the word Monster in them, there is not one called Monster Recycling. Also, their website, is a basic three-page thing that any slightly tech savvy person could throw up in a few minutes. If it is a legitimate business then it is a profit-making company, that is taking your clothes and selling them for profit and according to their website pays some of that back to the business that is hosting the Charity Bin. No where on their website to they mention any charities that they support!
When challenged by BBC Radio Wiltshire and the Swindon Advertiser, they claimed they had permission to place these bins but were unable to provide any evidence of this as it was verbal! Also, many of the locations these had appeared in, claimed to have not provided any permission.
No I don’t know if Sainsburys have provided permission or not, as they have yet to responded to my question, however I will NOT be using this donation bin, as when I Dontate clothes, I want it to be clear which charity my support is going too, and definitely not to this profit making business, with no links to any charity! So, I will stick to using the Oxfam one at Sainsburys or the Salvation Army ones at the Big Tesco’s.