Why was this archive created?

This archive preserves investigative journalism and public documents about the Tvind organization for research, transparency, and historical documentation. The original TvindAlert.com operated from 2001-2022 and was restored from Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) snapshots in memory of journalist Wade Larsen.

Planet Aid UK

📚 Historical Archive Notice

This content is from the original TvindAlert.com (2001-2022), preserved for historical and research purposes. Some images or documents may be unavailable.

Home
About this site
Quick tour
Who we are
FAQ
Links
Contact
----------------
The court case
Police charges
----------------
Tvind organisation
Is Tvind a Cult?
Teachers Group
Volunteers
Finance
----------------
The 'aid projects'
Clothes recycling
----------------
Tvind companies
Offshore accounts
Tvind plantations
Luxury properties
Luxury yacht
----------------
Key documents
News reports
----------------
Humana
Planet Aid
TCE
Green World
Netup
-------------------
Tvind Colleges
IICD
CICD Winestead
One World
Campus California
----------------
Tvind Schools
----------------
Who's who
----------------
Country profiles

Planet Aid UK

This Tvind used clothes company based in the north of England is a source of continual problems for legitimate charities.

Planet Aid UK is a small commercial company that collects old clothes on behalf of the Tvind Teachers Group under the guise of charity. It is not a charity. It describes itself as a non-profit company. The clothes are not given away in Africa and the money raised from selling them does not reach any officially recognised good cause outside Tvind.

Planet Aid's cynical, uncooperative management style and sometimes fly-by-night tactics are a source of real concern to official charities such as Scope, the Salvation Army and Oxfam, who have to put up with this unlicensed competitor.

Donations to genuine charities have dropped in areas where Planet Aid bins are placed. The company is also a headache for supermarkets and local councils.

Planet Aid clothes banks are frequently illegally sited on public land or outside supermarkets without official permission and in defiance of local agreements. Sometimes Planet Aid banks arrive at night but attempts to remove them have been met with threats of legal action.

Supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury, Safeway and Asda have so far failed to take action - managers usually turn a blind eye - perhaps because they are concerned about legal threats. Their customers, the public and legitimate charities are therefore continuing to be simply ripped off.

If you see a clothes bank operated by Planet Aid, you can complain to your supermarket by following the link here.

Other Tvind banks causing very similar problems are operated by Green World Recycling Ltd and College Aid.

A trade body, the Textile Recycling Association, and a sub-group that represents charity clothes recyclers, Recyclatex have both expressed serious concerns about Planet Aid and the other Tvind companies.

Planet Aid UK and Green World Recycling Ltd were both started by the Tvind Teachers Group in about 1998 after its original UK clothes operation, Humana UK was closed down by the Charity Commission. Two Teachers Group members from Denmark, Torben and Birgit Soe (a married couple) arrived in Britain to start the enterprises after Tvind lost control of Humana UK.

Birgit Soe is the TG managing director of Planet Aid. Torben Soe and Birgit Soe were both educated and indoctrinated within the Tvind system. They both worked for years at Tvind colleges and clothes companies in Scandinavia for many years, and are regarded as trusted members of the Teachers Group.

Among other directors of Planet Aid UK listed in about 2000 were TG members Jesper Wohlert (who has worked for many different Tvind companies, now thought to be running Humana clothes enterprises in Spain and Portugal) and Merete Utke Schioler, from Humana's big plant in Bunnik, Holland.

You can read about the Charity Commission investigation and closure of Humana UK here.

News from readers

Send news to feedback@tvindalert.com

In Kettering, Planet Aid has upset bona fide charities and the local authority by placing large numbers of containers in the town. It was referred to Northamptonshire Trading Standards department after claiming to be a charity - so far the council has been unable to act.

Someone from Planet Aid recently telephoned Traid, the non-Tvind company that has acquired Humana UK's assets, offering to buy clothes.

Planet Aid UK was one of many Tvind suppliers of the Dutch Tvind company Textile Transformation EC Trading bv of Holland, that suddenly went bankrupt in 2000 owing thousands of pounds. Did this allow money to disappear within the Tvind system?

Company details:

Sorting Centre: Corby

Addresses:

Variously given as:

Mansfield Rd, Wales bar/Kiveton Park, Sheffield, S26 5PE, UK
Tel: 01909 515655

Planet Aid UK, Old Waleswood Colliery, Mansfield Road Wales, Sheffield S31 8PE , England. Tel. +44 1909 515 655 Fax: +44 1909 515 655

18 Goldsmith Avenue, Acton, London

Stonepit Farm, Park Road Hartwell

Registered office variously given as:

9 Thorpe Close, Portobello Road, London NW10 5XL

18 Goldsmith Avenue, London W3 6HN
Tel: 020 8896 9387

Directors:

Birgit Soe (Secretary & Director) Tamworth, Staffs.

(Her husband Torben Soe runs Green World Recycling)

Jesper Wohlert, Barcelona, Spain

Merete Utke Schioler, Bunnik, Netherlands

From Planet Aid websites:

http://www.humana.org/projekterne/planet_aid_uk.htm

In England there is an old tradition for donating your used clothes for a good cause.
More than 4,000 charity shops are selling second hand clothes and raise funds for overseas development work as well as aid work in England.
Many clothes dealers and charities are collecting, sorting, grading and selling used clothes. Even though the

Facts

Start: October 1998
Employees: 2
Containers: 70
Project Leader: Birgit Soe

government calculates that only 25% of the second hand clothes are reused or recycled, more than 600,000 tonnes of textile still end up at the dump every year.
With a population of 57 million there is still plenty of scope for expansion. Planet Aid wants to contribute to the recycling schemes in England by placing clothes containers in the local communities, visible and convenient for people to use.
In that way rich as well as poor can, with their donation of used clothes, contribute to better the life for the poorest people on our planet.

Planet Aid has started in two urban areas in the Midlands; Sheffield and Northampton. During the first three months 70 clothes banks have been installed, and the collection has seen its dawn. The first 12 tonnes have been collected. Information packets have been sent to 12 local councils, who will receive reports of the collection every quarter. The clothes banks are placed outside the post offices or the pubs, and the local people have adopted it as "their" bank. It has been a very positive experience to get the agreements with the "site owners". You meet a wide ranging knowledge and an attitude of concern for your fellow man. Many site owners actively promote the collection and are very proud and happy when they experience that the collection is increasing in "their bank". They know about the suffering of the millions of people on our planet. They want to see changes for the many, many who are not as tuned in as we. They want to do something for their fellow man.

With the start of The College for International Cooporation and Development (CICD) in England in the autumn 1998 we are looking forward to develop a fruitful partnership with the college. The Solidarity Workers trained at the College can, together with Planet Aid, involve many people in England in the Humana People to People Movement.

Planet Aid UK is looking forward to 1999 as the year when we will be acknowledged as a player in the field of collecting second hand clothes in England, and at the same time spread the knowledge and involvement of development aid work based on Solidary Humanism.

http://www.humana.org/projektlederne/birgit_soe.htm

Birgit Se

Nation: Denmark

E-mail:

Project: Planet Aid UK

My Motivations for beeing a Project Leader:
I want to do good for other people, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America where help is needed. I also want to make it possible for people in England to participate in good work. People really want to help each other when they have this possibility. With the containers for second hand clothes, people can help, even without money.

My background:
I was a part of founding the first organisation in the HUMANA People to People movement. At that time I was working full time as a primary school teacher, and for the first 10 years I worked as a volunteer outside my normal working hours to build up the organisation. I especially worked with a lot of children, in the DAPP scout movement. In 1986 I visited the DAPP projects in Zambia, and I could see that it was so important to do the projects in Africa, so I decided to resign from my teachers job and work full time with HUMANA People to People, which is what I have been doing since that time.

My dreams and visions about my project:
That we are on the map in England. That we will become a well known organisation in this country, and that we can raise a lot of money. I wish to see that whole country filled with Planet Aid Containers.

UNITED KINGDOM
Planet Aid UK, Old Waleswood Colliery, Mansfield Road Wales, Sheffield S318 PE , England.
Tel. +44 1909 515 655
Fax: +44 1909 515 655
planuk@dial.pipex.com

http://www.planetaid-uk.org/