Every minute of every day, a shopper posts an unwanted product back to Amazon. And, every day, families living within range of its giant returns warehouse in Fife are given porridge oats, bedsheets, nappies, saucepans and much else.
Since its launch 18 months ago, a scheme set up by Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, and John Boumphrey, Amazon’s UK manager, has handed out more than a million items, worth about £20 million in total, to about 40,000 families in Fife and surrounding areas in central Scotland.
Brown, 72, describes the scheme as “a food bank, clothes bank, bedding bank, toiletries bank, furnishings bank and baby bank rolled into one”.
The “multibank” model has expanded to Greater Manchester, and he expects it to reach five
