Day 52: Be Responsible!

Last Fall I cleaned out my closets and ended up with about 6 bags of clothes, shoes and purses that I wanted to donate. I drove to the nearest bin I could find and dumped my clothes in, only noticing the sign on the bin AFTER my clothes were safely inside.







The sign read:

"We are a commercial company doing something good for our environment. Together we can reduce waste and conserve. We cooperate with schools, non-profits, city recycling programs and local businesses."

The sign seemed a little strange to me. Why is this commercial company excepting donations? Why are they so vague about what they're doing? And how exactly do they cooperate with these schools, non-profits, city recycling programs and local businesses? So I decided to look into the company that has these drop boxes everywhere around Decatur and other cities.

The company is called USAgain (formerly known as U'SAgain--their use of an unnecessary apostrophe does not help their case any). They operate under the guise of an "environmentally-friendly" company that does its best to keep our landfills free of recyclable trash. That seemed like a pretty worthwhile cause to me, that is until I continued my research on this company.

I found THIS ARTICLE from a news station's investigation of the company. Basically the USAgain company collects clothing and shoes in these bins and SELLS them (they don't donate) to third world countries, schools and other non-profits. They also work with a non-profit called PlanetAid, which has been under investigation for corruption in recent years. Both of these companies have alleged ties to a European cult called The Teachers Group (click HERE to read more about those allegations.). The Teachers Group has been accused of tax evasion and financial crimes. To learn more about this cult, CLICK HERE. Both co-CEO's of USAgain are members of The Teachers Group. And USAgain works closely with PlanetAid, which is a non-profit organization that has strong ties to the cult. I smell something fishy.

The problem is that USAgain disguises its drop boxes so that they look like charity donation bins. I never would have given my used clothing to them if I would have known it would be sold for their profit.

This quotation is from a news article from Quincy, Illinois:

Here's the way the U'SAgain company works. You drop off your clothing and shoes into a drop off bin. Once a week, the contents of the bin are picked up and taken to St. Louis. Then U'SAgain sells the clothes by the pound and ships them to third world countries.

So not only was my donation used for someone else's profit, but the company that received the profit was not even in my local community! In addition to this, my donation was diverted from getting into the hands of the local people in my community who are in need of it.

So you may wonder why there are so many of these collection bins in the area, and how USAgain gets local businesses to agree to put collection bins in their parking lots. Well, I'm convinced that there are two guilty parties here: 1. USAgain has fancy wording that makes their company seem like a charitable organization. And 2. The business owners who put these bins in their lots probably don't do a great deal of research.

The kind-hearted business owners are duped into thinking they're helping out a charity by placing a red donation bin in their parking lot. A representative from U'SAgain comes into their business with a great proposition: allow us to put our bin here, and you will look great to the community because you're helping a charity. And you'll get more traffic in and out of your parking lot every day without lifting a finger.

USAgain's website says this:

At USAgain, we work for three things:
people, planet and profit.

We want to be clear that USAgain is a for-profit corporation. Running a sustainable business that contributes to the local economy through job creation, buying local products and services and paying taxes is important to USAgain. We also use some of the revenue we generate to give back to the community. A percentage of each sale of the collected clothes benefits the "host" of the collection bins - the school, church, or office park where a bin is stationed. We donate a portion of our earnings to charities and nonprofits here in the US and abroad.

The first article I linked in this blog, however, says that in a phone conversation with the CEO of USAgain, he was unable to name any local organization that had benefited from his company's collections in the area.

The bottom line is that we as consumers need to be more responsible and aware of what we're doing with our unwanted items. I hate that I allowed this terrible company to make a profit off of me. And I want to start a personal crusade to make sure everyone knows about this fraudulent company and its dishonest and horrible business practices.

If you don't want to donate your clothing to a legitimate resale shop like Goodwill or Salvation Army, do some research and find out if there are shelters in your area that need clothing items. I know of several here in my community and I'm going to make sure from now on that my donations end up in the hands of a person who really needs them.

I know today's blog was an off-topic one, but thanks for reading and thanks for helping to get the word out about this crooked company.