Charities would not take old bed

Last week, I purchased a new bed and mattress and also a single mattress.

Having read in the Mercury of the impending funding cuts to homeless charities in Leicestershire, I spent a good deal of time phoning various organisations, offering my (not so) old bed/mattresses.

Only two charities expressed any form of interest in them, but one had no transport and the other said my address (10 miles from it) was too far away for it to collect.

The company from which I purchased my bed and mattresses had offered to dispose of the old ones.

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I declined its offer in the naive notion that I ought to do my bit in helping others and therefore donate them.

How wrong can you be? It looks like I will be making several trips to the tip.

Unless any charity can make use of them, which from the foregoing seems unlikely.

RDV Cross, Cedar Farm House, Peatling Parva.

A recent article suggested people would save money if they threw less food away ("Cut food waste to save £680", Mercury, January 23).

We all know that and only throw away what we have to. But some big companies throw away a vast amount of food.

Rather than give it to the needy or reduce it to next to nothing, they would rather throw it in the bin.

I've worked for a few of these companies. If a box was damaged, it would be "oh throw it in the skip".

A few packs missing from a box of 24 items? "Oh, throw it in the skip".

I have seen skips full of food that could easily have been used.

Then you get stores which reduce short-dated and damaged items by just a few pence, not getting the customer interested.

Then what happens? They throw them away. So if households throw away too much food, big stores and manufacturers throw away much more.

Gary Bannister, Leicester.

I would like to say thank you to Steve Birch. I look forward to his jokes, which are always clean, often corny but always give me a giggle.

V. Liptrot, Queniborough.