Copper Face Jacks
A helpful sign in Copper Face Jacks club. Copper Face Jacks

Every weekend thousands people across the world leave their coats and jackets in the cloakrooms of clubs and bars, and many never return to collect them. The problem has inspired a club in Dublin to donate the lost items to the city's homeless.

Copper Face Jacks – Dublin's biggest nightclub – has shown off the enormous quantity of abandoned jackets left in its club, revealing that if people don't come forward to reclaim them after six weeks they'll be donated to multiple charities.

"On one of our busiest nights during the week, you could expect something like four or five full bags of jackets left behind," Copper Face Jacks spokesman Rory Traynor told The Irish Independent.

"We are kept so busy with our lost and found that it's pretty much a full-time service, between messages, emails and collection times. I'd say we would have probably two or three hundred [jackets] built up over the space of a year. "

Most of the coats find their way back to their owners, however.

"I'd say around 90% of people who leave behind their jackets, will call and collect their jacket at the instructed times, without any issues. In some cases, people may have been in Ireland for a weekend and travelled back home without even realising they've left it behind.

"It's nice for people to think that the coat they lost or forgotten may just keep someone warm this winter.

"Instead of donating to just one charity, we try our best to share them out to various charities and homeless foundations. With the cold spell we are facing in the coming weeks we will be sending a lot of the jackets to the homeless. We're aware that homelessness is an ongoing problem in the city, so we're glad to be doing our bit."

Multiple charities came forward to the venue after they shared a video of the enormous amount of lost items on Facebook.

In a follow-up post, the club said: "We are overwhelmed by the response to this post. We'd like to reassure everyone, WE DO donate all unclaimed jackets to charity and homeless foundations. You may have lost a jacket, but you may just keep someone warm this winter."