In a Tesco car park in Edmonton, Bozena Przybyla bags up a pair of cork wedge heels to drop into the Variety Club recycling bin. She is not alone in Britain in trying to help the charity for sick, disabled and disadvantaged children by offloading some old shoes.
In the last few years, well over 2,000 tonnes of footwear have been collected annually from similar shoe banks, each branded with the jaunty top hat and heart logo of the entertainment industry charity. The Variety Club is famous for providing Sunshine coaches and its association with TV and film stars such as Michael Caine, Michael Parkinson and Jimmy Tarbuck, but there is little glamour sorting odd flip-flops, pairing up old trainers and untangling high heels. There is, though, good money to be earned, but the question is by whom?
Information about volumes of footwear collected, how much they are sold for and how much goes to the charity's good causes is not easy to discover. None of it is routinely made public by the Variety Club or their commercial partners, the European Recycling Company, which makes it difficult to find out for anyone interested in maximising the charitable impact of their recycling. But information obtained by the Guardian shows that between 2008 and 2010, ERC turned over on average £1.9m a year on the sale of more than 2,000 tonnes of shoes collected annually. Despite the smiling faces of children adorning the bins, the benefit to the charity in 2009 of this nationwide operation was £5,500, ERC confirmed, rising to £30,000 in 2011. Full story...
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In the last few years, well over 2,000 tonnes of footwear have been collected annually from similar shoe banks, each branded with the jaunty top hat and heart logo of the entertainment industry charity. The Variety Club is famous for providing Sunshine coaches and its association with TV and film stars such as Michael Caine, Michael Parkinson and Jimmy Tarbuck, but there is little glamour sorting odd flip-flops, pairing up old trainers and untangling high heels. There is, though, good money to be earned, but the question is by whom?
Information about volumes of footwear collected, how much they are sold for and how much goes to the charity's good causes is not easy to discover. None of it is routinely made public by the Variety Club or their commercial partners, the European Recycling Company, which makes it difficult to find out for anyone interested in maximising the charitable impact of their recycling. But information obtained by the Guardian shows that between 2008 and 2010, ERC turned over on average £1.9m a year on the sale of more than 2,000 tonnes of shoes collected annually. Despite the smiling faces of children adorning the bins, the benefit to the charity in 2009 of this nationwide operation was £5,500, ERC confirmed, rising to £30,000 in 2011. Full story...
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