'Rag' price slump costs charity £5,000 a week

A children's hospice charity has said a slump in the price of unwanted clothing has been costing it nearly £5,000 a week.

East Anglia's Children's Hospices (EACH), which has 52 charity shops across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire, said prices for the clothing - known as "rag" - had plummeted by up to 73% over the past three years.

The Charity Retail Association (CRA) said the global market had been facing a "perfect storm" of wars, labour shortages and a drop in the quality of second-hand garments.

EACH insisted its services would not be cut as a result, but said it was looking at other ways to fundraise.

"[Rag] is a valuable income stream to EACH and we're losing nearly £250,000 a year," said the charity's retail director, Ian Nicolson.

"On top of that it's the potential landfill it creates as a result - as they're [clothing collectors] no longer picking up our rag, which is up to 11 tonnes every week."

EACH, which runs three children's hospices, said the price of rag had fallen from 45p per kg (2.2lb) to 12p per kg over the past three years.

In 2024, the charity's total income was £21.1m, of which £7.7m was raised by its charity shops.

Without EACH, Hannah Taylor who lives near Sudbury, says she would be "lost without them".

Alongside her four year old son, Leo, she has been visiting the Ipswich centre for the past six months.

"Having this place for Leo to stay overnight, even for daycare so I can rest, it's just wonderful. It's key to keeping us going," she said.

If funding had to be cut down, the 31-year-old she said she would really struggle.

"It doesn't bear thinking about, not having somewhere we can go for events or daycare.

"EACH is everything for us. Now we are part of this family, I never want to leave.

"I would be lost without them. All the care staff are wonderful, even when you come through the front door and the greeting you get."

EACH said it received, on average, about 9,000 bags of donated items each week - of which only four items per bag were good enough to sell.

Other items were too dirty, marked or ripped.

Like many other charity shops, the unwanted clothing is sold to collectors, and distributed to markets around the world to be resold.

Robin Osterley, CRA chief executive, said rag collectors had faced global transportation issues due to conflicts in places such as Africa and Ukraine.

"Not only has it reduced income it's also made it harder for charities to get the service they need to clear their back rooms of excess stock," he told the BBC.

"It doesn't seem as bad now as it did a year ago when I was receiving almost daily phone calls from clothing collectors and our members saying 'this is all going horribly wrong, what can we do about it?'.

"But it's a volatile market and things can change quite quickly."

Mr Osterley said market analysis showed its members received "no more than 1.9% of their income" from the sale of used clothing to collectors.

A spokesperson for the Textile Recycling Association said other factors were behind the "economic crisis" facing the industry.

"This is driven by the rise of ultra-fast fashion, which is poor quality has no resale value, and a surge in collected clothing without market expansion," they said.

"A decade ago, most used clothing came from the UK, USA, and parts of Europe.

"Now, collection rates have soared worldwide, with China emerging as the largest source alongside the USA, and Asian countries playing a much bigger role in the trade."

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