00:00Are we about to ditch charity shops?
00:02Here in the UK, we donate about 350,000 tons of clothes to charity every year.
00:07There are nearly 10,000 charity shops on British high streets,
00:10and shopping for pre-loved clothes has been embraced by many as a sustainable alternative to fast fashion.
00:16Between 2024 and 2025, the UK's charity shops made more than £300 million.
00:22But this summer, the British Heart Foundation said it was planning to close about 150 shops,
00:27just under a quarter of its UK stores.
00:29The charity said it was operating in an exceptionally challenging environment,
00:33with rising operating costs and changing customer habits,
00:36making some stores no longer financially sustainable.
00:39More recently, an Oxfam insider has claimed the charity is considering shutting down 100 of its 500 UK retail stores
00:46too.
00:47So what's going on?
00:48The Guardian says that the glut of fast fashion has led to a drop in the number of good quality
00:52items being donated.
00:53Charity shops in Britain are overwhelmed with stuff, said Tansy Hoskins.
00:58They are desperate to get rid of most of the old clothes they are given,
01:00selling them off to recycling companies in rag bags, she told The Telegraph.
01:04And the average price that charity shops get for a kilo of worn clothes
01:07has dropped from 45p to 15p over the last decade.
01:12Charity shops also have to compete with online second-hand retailers like Vinted and eBay,
01:17although those can be a useful source of income too.
01:19We put the higher-value items that we do get on eBay to make the most money for the charity
01:24that we can,
01:25one charity shop manager wrote on Reddit.
01:27Increases in national insurance and wage bills have hit charity shops,
01:31like many other small businesses, but they don't have to pay the same business rates.
01:35Simon Heptonstall wrote in The Spectator that this exemption had given charity shops
01:40a ridiculous near-monopoly on high streets.
01:42They can also rely on what he called an army of unpaid volunteers.
01:45Nearly a quarter of a million volunteers across the UK work alongside nearly 25,000 paid employees.
01:52Robin Osterly, the outgoing chief executive of the Charity Retail Association,
01:56has rejected the suggestion that the sector is in crisis.
01:59He told Civil Society that he didn't have any concerns about the future of shops.
02:04He thinks the closures are simply indicative of a trend towards higher standards
02:07and towards larger shops in particular.
02:09may be required for the country aже or tenanted public in that state.
02:09But he says $3,000 million people are and those stories
