Charity bins bumped for profit-making collections

By Rory Callinan
Updated July 6 2014 - 11:13am, first published 10:47am
It ends up here: A U-Turn store selling recycled clothing in Bondi Beach. Photo: Dean Sewell
It ends up here: A U-Turn store selling recycled clothing in Bondi Beach. Photo: Dean Sewell

Billion-dollar retail giants Westfield and Lend Lease have been trying to evict charity clothing collection bins from their shopping centres in order to replace them with those operated by a for-profit recycled clothing export business.

The nationwide "licensed arrangement" between the for-profit operator and the shopping centres is predicted to cost respected charities such as the Smith Family and the Endeavour Foundation hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, threaten the jobs of clothing-sorters and impact on cheap sources of clothes for the needy.

Lend Lease, which says on its website that it strives to play a positive role in the community, earlier this year ordered the Smith Family to remove bins from three shopping centres in NSW as part of a new national policy.

In Queensland, the Endeavour Foundation, which helps those with disabilities, was told to remove bins from Westfield shopping centres at Carindale and Strathpine.

In Victoria, Paravin, an entity of the Spine and Limb Foundation Inc, was ordered to remove bins from the Lend Lease-operated Greensborough Plaza in Melbourne's northern suburbs.

Charities querying the evictions were told that the publicly listed shopping centre companies had entered into a national agreement with another operator.

Fairfax has learnt the new operator is two associated private NSW-based companies, King Cotton Australia Pty Ltd and Horizon Storm Pty Ltd, both of which are listed as being owned and directed by Sydney-based businessman Christoforos Dimou, 70, according to ASIC records. 

King Cotton has a sophisticated website that describes the company as a market leader in the trade of recycled clothing and rags exporting container loads monthly to the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific.

The company is also associated with a chain of second-hand clothing stores called "U-Turn", which include shops at Hall Street in Bondi, Crown Street, Surry Hills and one in Marrickville selling vintage and recycled clothing.

King Cotton and Horizon Storm have justified their collection operations by donating to two charities, Make A Wish and Learning Links, both of which feature as brands on its clothing collection bins.

This week, Make A Wish, which aims to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions, confirmed it has signed a three-year deal with King Cotton in late 2013.

The charity says the deal involves a guaranteed donation of at least $270,000 over three years in exchange for using its Make A Wish brand on 244 bins spread across NSW, Victoria and Western Australia.

Learning Links, which seeks to assist children with learning difficulties, declined to comment on what agreement it had with the King Cotton or Horizon Storm or what donation it receives. 

The charity’s financial statement for the 2012 to 2013 financial year says it received $51,048 for "recycled clothing" fund-raising and $46,363 the previous financial year.

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