This article is from page 8 of the 2013-05-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
COMMERCIAL companies, including organisations that have a charitable ethos are erecting clothing banks on public and private property in Clare without permission, according to Clare County Council.
Some of these banks are duping people into believing they are donating to charity, while they are really contributing to a multi-million euro private enterprise.
Clothes recycling is a multi million-euro business in Ireland with charitable organisation using second hand clothing as a form of fundraising. What is not sold as clothing is shredded and used as industrial rag cloth. However not all clothes banks are for charity, including some that claim to be.
Clare County Council has adopted a policy of putting warning notices on offending banks and removing them from the sites if the warning is ignored. A lack of legislation however makes it impossible for the local authority to regulate clothing banks, and it is therefore impossible to calculate how many clothing banks are in the county.
Not all clothing banks are erected illegally however. Clare County Council has 17 sites with Clare County Council Clothing Banks on them. These include the five recycling centres and 12 bring bank sites. Some of these sites have a single clothes bank, while others have two, which is dependent on the amount of clothing being brought to the sites and if there has been a history of issues with clothing be dumped at sites with banks overflowing.
Clare County Council does not rent space to companies and clothes banks that are installed at Clare County Council sites as part of an agreed contract are not belonging to any charity at present. Charities have tendered for this contract however and it is expected that charitable contracts will be awarded shortly.
While the local authority only put Clare County Council clothes banks on council property, there have been issues with private individuals or companies illegally installing banks on council property. The council has issued warnings and removed these banks when they are discovered.
A spokesperson for Clare County Council said that there are a number of clothing banks also on private property, both with and without the owners’ permission. “Numerous companies and charities place clothes banks on private property including sites where Clare County Council have bottle banks. This may be with the agreement of the owner of the property and sometimes a financial agreement takes place between both parties. There are occasions where clothes banks are put on private property without the permission of the owners and Clare County Council have been contacted in relation to this, looking for the banks to be removed,” he said.
“There is no legislation in place for dealing with this and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) do not consider clothing banks to be a waste stream, therefore waste permits are not required to install clothing banks on properties.
“A lot of clothes banks may advertise charities on them but the charity may not own the banks. The charities get a percentage of the profit from the banks. There are also a lot of questionable charity names on some banks,” he added.