Charity's recycling claims mislead public

Outside the Asda store in the West Midlands suburb of Great Barr there is a green metal container. Last week shoppers dumped nearly half a ton of old clothes and shoes into it. They believed they were helping the environment.

Outside the Asda store in the West Midlands suburb of Great Barr there is a green metal container. Last week shoppers dumped nearly half a ton of old clothes and shoes into it. They believed they were helping the environment.

There are 200 such bins throughout the West Midlands, West Country, south Wales and southern England placed by Green World Recycling.

On the side of the bin a notice lists an ambitious programme of 18 objectives, saying that with the money raised by selling the clothes: "We hire rangers, install trails for eco-tourism, arrange nature study camps for schools, conduct scientific studies ...'

The notice says the bin belongs to The Gaia-Movement Trust Living Earth Green World Action. The Great Barr bin, like the others, is emptied three times a week; the contents go to a warehouse on the Blue Bird industrial estate in Wolverhampton. From there, once a week a trailer, usually from Poland, Russia or the Ukraine, is filled with 15 tons of old garments - at £400 a ton, worth £6,000 - and driven abroad. Twice a month a similar lorry leaves an industrial estate in Queensborough, Kent.

That is a turnover of £468,000 a year. Yet although Green World Recycling has been in business for three years, it has not given a penny to charity, nor is there evidence that any of the projects advertised by The Gaia-movement Trust Living Earth Green World Action exist, except on paper.

And another company, called Planet Aid UK, is also collecting in the Midlands and the north in aid of the Third World. Their bins have surfaced in car parks and pub forecourts from Kettering to Sheffield.

Both companies are run by Torben and Birgit Soe, a married couple from Denmark. Mr Soe, 6ft 6ins, runs Green World Recycling from a tatty office on the Wolverhampton industrial estate, drives an old Renault van and lives in a modest semi-detached in Tamworth, Staffordshire.

The couple belong to an organisation called The Teachers Group, sometimes known as Tvind. The Teachers Group has a long and colourful history. It is run on the principles of a common economy: its members pool their incomes and wealth. They also submit to iron discipline.

Hardly a penny of the millions raised by the Teachers Group goes to the world outside - the money is invariably spent on its own charities. And because the cash crosses national boundaries and ends in offshore accounts, it is seldom accountable.

The founder of the Teachers Group, a charismatic Dane named Mogens Amdi Petersen, has not made a public appearance since 1979 and is zealously protected by supporters in Florida, Zimbabwe and the Cayman Islands.

This strange, secret empire of several hundred ideologues is the organisation collecting through Green World and also Planet Aid.

Three years ago the Soes were associated with another clothes-recycling charity, Humana UK, which fell foul of the Charity Commission for financial mismanagement. It too was part of the Teachers Group. When it was investigated only 8 per cent of its turnover was going to "good causes". Humana was closed.

Mrs Soe is also a director of the College for International Co-operation and Development near Hull, east Yorkshire, which was subjected to Charity Commission inquiries in 1997, when it was a Teachers Group school for disturbed children.

The Soes came to Britain to help run Humana UK, then the recycling enterprises. Green World and Planet Aid UK are not registered with the Charity Commission: they are private limited companies. Mr Soe says any Green World revenue surplus will be passed to a foundation in Switzerland.

The Gaia-Movement Trust Living Earth Green World Action is registered in Geneva at an accommodation address in the Geneva World Trade Centre. There is no Gaia office. The address and phone number belong to a British businessman, Michael Rogers, who has no connection with Gaia but passes on mail.

Planet Aid's cheeky venture in the Midlands has already been noted by the Textile Recycling Association. Five charities, Barnardo's, the British Heart Foundation, Oxfam, The Salvation Army, and Scope, have drawn up a joint letter with the TRA and Recyclatex, another trade body, to be sent to local authorities and supermarkets, pointing out concerns about Planet Aid.

"Research indicates Planet Aid UK Ltd is directly related to Humana and thence to Tvind," the letter says. But the charities cannot agree on the precise wording and the letter has not been sent.

So what does happen to the money Green World Recycling and Planet Aid make?

"The money will go to a good cause," says Mr Soe. "Everybody knows it takes time to start up a company. We're just not there yet. We're not in a position to be able to give anything away."