Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

I give my books to Tesco now. They have a book shelf against the wall and people can leave them there for others to read in exchange for a nominal monetary amount ( not mandatory). I’ve noticed the books I leave at the beginning of my shopping seem to vanish before I’m on my way out! It seems a really good way of re-using the books instead of putting them out in the rubbish.

 

I was just going to say that @Songbird , our local Tesco has the same scheme. I leave magazines there too.

 

My wife donates a lot of clothes to local charity shops. That's because she has so many clothes half of them never get worn (sadly not joking). A few years ago I was talking to the manager of our local Sally Army shop who said they had to start wearing rubber gloves to go through bags of donations. They'd found dirty nappies and soiled underwear in bags!

There was a company which purchased second hand clothes. They didn't pay a fortune but it was better than giving them away. They were actually based in Poland and sold most of the stuff in Eastern Europe. When they closed another place appeared who only paid about half what the original company paid. They also expected you to stand around while they checked, folded and packed every item. I didn't mind them checking but expecting me to stand around for the rest was taking the proverbial. Since then all good stuff goes to charity shops directly.

 

A large amount of clothing ends up in Africa, where it undercuts the local textile industries and puts people out of work.

 

If an item of clothing isn't good enough for someone esle to wear I recycle it as gardening clobber and wear them till falling apart. Lots of OH's old t-shirts and shorts and Possum's jeans end up this way.

If people are including dirty nappies and other horrors in bags of clothes for recycling I can well understand why they now check every item before accepting a donation.

I have taken the odd book, and picked some up, at the local Anglo-French club but we are no longer members and there's no other outlet for English language books here. That's OK as I'm happy to keep my classic whodunnit fiction and all my cookery and gardening books but what to do with all Possum's books about Brexit and it effect on politics and economy that we had to buy for her studies?

 

You lot must get different bags then - all the ones we get have holes in them. I'd never use those as a bin liner!
I've also heard that many times re the rubbish being put in the bags @pete. People are just scum.
I wear clothes until they're knackered, so they either get used in the garden, or for decorating etc, or get binned. I've also used stuff i n the garden - underlay for ponds, or for protecting the edges where there's rocks etc. I wouldn't dream of taking those to a charity shop.
If I have anything I no longer wear, I take it there though, but I cleared a load of stuff out a couple of years ago, and I don't buy anything that I don't need. Our local town has s*d all apart from charity shops nowadays, so even if I didn't have transport, it would be easy enough to donate anything as I'm only a 20 min walk away.
I can understand it if you don't have that facility though, or transport etc -bags would be useful.

 

Oh the irony. The asian producers of all sorts of things have that to the UK industries for decades.

 

I read somewhere a few yrs ago that if you donate a puffa jacket to charity, it likely makes its way in a large bale to Africa, where the contents get sold on "blind" to middlemen and from there make their way to towns and markets where they are purchased by would-be asylum seekers who then travel up to Calais and cross the channel. Quite a circle!

That said, today's channel crossers seem to be fairly uniformly dressed, so possibly the supply is now controlled by the traffickers and deliberately organised so no one stands out identifiably in a bright red ex M&S number.

 

@KT53 it was British manufacturers who transferred production to cheaper production in Asia where there are very few protections for their workers - overcrowded workshops, little or no safety measures, extremely low pay. Some, such as Tesco, M&S claim to check factory conditions before signing contracts but are not diligent.

It wouldn't be accepted in the UK or EU so why do people here care less about workers elsewhere.

 

Locally there is a little phone box type place called the public library, where old books can be used and exchanged. I think it's a good scheme and luckily it doesn't seem to get mistreated.

Most of the clothes I wear would never be considered in a good enough state to be passed on as I literally wear them to death and don't buy much. My favourite jumper is many shades lighter than it used to be, so thin, the zip no longer works and the cuffs are thread bare, it the sort of thing and antique dealer would say has" plenty of patina".

We don't get as many charity bags as we did a few years ago. I can't remember the last time one was popped through our door but there was a time that we'd get them nearly every week.

I walk passed a charity shop to get to the allotment and the prices in the window seem to have really gone through the roof lately. The quality also seems to have gone down as they have sofa's and chairs for many hundreds, covered in scuffs or dirty marks, some even look like someone probably died sitting on them.

The one thing I do have to give away is excess produce from the allotment. I mostly give it to neighbours now because the collection for the food bank was stopped, when other allotment holders used to cherry pick and nick what was left there. I once picked about 15 punnets of raspberries (something we always have a surplus of) and they were pinched within a few minutes of me leaving and coming back. There was a half rotten marrow in their place though.

 

Most companies are driven by market forces, if they can buy it cheaper from abroad and sell it at the same profit margin then they will.

Only import taxes will stop them doing it.

 

Recycling worn out items is a problem. Some charity shops will take bags of rags, others not - and worn out shoes end up in the bin. Natural fibres can be composted, but I put them in the council compost bin here rather than home composting... don't fancy digging up half a pair of pants with the spuds...

 

I read an article once @Liriodendron describing how French farmers would bury a pair of old cotton undies in a field and then inspect after a period of time to see how well it had decomposed. If it was well rotten, fine. If not, they'd know to add more organic matter to their soil to increase soil bacteria and improve fertility.

The initial move to manufacture in Asia was in fact profit led by companies seeking cheaper costs without lowering prices and thus gaining massive profits. prices are now lower as there is more competition as everyone heads east but quality is often crap and toys, for one example, do not follow UK and EU safety standards. Buyer beware.

Clearly, @ pete, some people will always choose the cheapest option and not care about who made it and in what conditions. I refuse to buy anything made in China because I have a deep dislike of their social and economic policies which suppress most of their population and lead to imbalance in worldwide production and consumption. We paid more for our new freezer because it was made in the EU and not China but that means jobs and spending power at home which is important for long term economic security and prosperity.

 

Clearly, @ pete, some people will always choose the cheapest option and not care about who made it and in what conditions. I refuse to buy anything made in China because I have a deep dislike of their social and economic policies which suppress most of their population and lead to imbalance in worldwide production and consumption. We paid more for our new freezer because it was made in the EU and not China but that means jobs and spending power at home which is important for long term economic security and prosperity.[/QUOTE]

I agree, up to a point, but you are lucky to be able to take the more expensive option, not everyone is, and if someone on minimum wage would like a freezer and can afford a Chinese one they are going to do it.

Basically it just depends on how well off you are in order to take the moral high ground.