Not just rubbish

Unverkäufliche Kleidung, die nicht im Reißwolf oder auf der Mülldeponie landet, sondern für gute Zwecke genutzt wird, bildet den Hintergrund für unser Quiz. Der Text enthält Vokabeln auf Englisch, mit denen Sie Ihr Business English für den Berufsalltag erweitern können.

A story about rubbish can help you to learn business vocabulary. Read the short news item and then try the exercise on the language used.

Many UK high streets look exactly the same, which is why they are known as "clone towns". Cambridge may top the University league tables and have beautiful old buildings, but, according to the think-tank New Economics Foundation, it also ranks as the UK's most cloned town. As in most towns and cities, in Cambridge you'll find the same old chain stores (for clothes, books and coffee mainly). But you'll also find a charity shop . The last one might surprise you, but it’s true. In the UK, many high streets have one —  sometimes two — charity shops. And they are full of perfectly acceptable goods.

I’d often wondered why the items were in such excellent condition. Obviously, the charity shops will only take in items that it can sell. But I was always surprised that so many people had so much to give away. Until I learned that this wasn’t necessarily the case, after all. A lot of the items are donated by other retailers. It’s become quite a tradition — and no doubt a convenient way — to get rid of clothes that are slightly damaged or unsaleable by donating them to charity shops.

But not all stores donate their faulty goods or garments. Some, reports the BBC, shred or dump the clothes they can’t sell. Several charities spoke out against the practice as they felt the items could easily have been used to raise funds. “Shops could certainly sell that stock and get a good profit for it so it's a shame that it does not always happen,” Warren Alexander, chief executive of the Association of Charity Shops, told the BBC.

According to the British Heart Foundation, there are other reasons to donate faulty goods rather than sending them to the landfill. By making regular donations, the company can enhance its reputation as an ethical retailer, the organization claimed.

By dumping goods or destroying them, the retailer increases the environmental damage (just think about the wasted resources and the production and transport costs). There is really no reason to destroy the goods, since, even when the garments are unwearable, the charity shops can sell them to rag merchants.

Primark, the store at the centre of the scandal, defended its practices. “In order to prevent unsaleable products re-entering the market via unscrupulous traders, we destroy the product at the store,” it told the BBC. The company claimed its actions protected the consumer. On its website, you’ll find a whole section devoted to ethical trading. At the moment, there is no mention of ethical dumping.

OK, let’s see how much you have learned from this text. Focus in particular on the words that we have translated.

Deborah Capras