To ask charity shop workers what you DO and DON'T want donated

[DimityandDeNimes]

Obviously you don't want anything dirty or broken.

I'm having a massive clear out and am struggling to decide what to donate or recycle or bin.

Are you overwhelmed by stuff at the moment? My friend dropped a few bags at a huge charity shop and said their faces dropped at the sight of more stuff!

@SallySeven

We buy very little and so do end up with rags eventually.

I am composting small amounts of old holey pure wool and cotton this year. I'll see how it goes. (I'd only admit that on an anonymous board!)

Wool composts very well. It’s also good for deterring slugs.

It seems that charity shops let good items slip through that could earn them a lot more money. A Beswick china horse in a rare colour way raised £4,000 for a charity shop

Believe me, we really try not to. But in our shop we have one ancient desktop computer to look things up on. You can't expect everyone to know about everything - i'd recognise the name Beswick, and am shit hot at finding hallmarks on jewellery, but i'm lost when it comes to old cameras or paintings. We do have other people who are more expert in that area but it's also a balance. With the sheer volume of stuff we have to process, you simply can't spend even 10 minutes looking everything up. So you do your best, and unavoidably some things slip through the net.

Ours takes almost anything- even old ripped clothes/rags go to charity and they get paid by the kilo.
But they have been pretty overwhelmed recently. You could call around, explain and ask if they have anything they are short of.
If your toys are easily cleaned and good condition, food banks might take them. (ours takes good condition toys and kids clothes)

Bric-a-brac, Toys, Kids' stuff
There are often requests on freegle and freecycle stuff for car boot sale stuff.
Sometimes they are raising funds for charity.

Offer your stuff as car boot items.

Don' put things in the bin if someone else can use it.

[quote listsandbudgets]@bookmum08 frankly I was too outraged to bother !! Perhaps they didn't like nearly new boden, Jaeger, Joules and M&S in that particular shop - Hospice shop seemed very pleased with them though.[/quote]
Hospice Charity shops are some of my favourite ..They tend to have nicer stuff {not cheap!} but this is how they raise funds.

A local Hospice to me raises most of it's running costs via their charity shops.

They get no State funding, so everything helps./

Also...the charity shops of my youth used to smell...Thankfully this isn't the case now, but who on earth donates unwashed clothing to charity shops?

Have heard of some really nasty items that were fit only for ''Biohazard'' waste.

timeforanew I would have asked for them back. Seriously. I would have. I am more inclined to think the volunteer was 'hiding' them to steal later. It's is a weird thing to do. I would have also informed the manager (or area manager if this was the store manager).

Someone mentioned the magpie project, they are local to me and fabulous. I donate all my children's clothes to them and also a double pram which they were thrilled about!

I phoned a bunch of local charity shops when I needed to urgently get rid of one bag (supermarket bag for life to give you an idea of size) of items. Called four shops, only one was currently accepting donations and max of one bag.

So I'd suggest calling to check.

Sorry should say this was a week or two ago.

I've taken decent clothes, toys, kitchen stuff and bedding to my local women's refuge in the past.

I'm holding off for the minute as they've got so much stuff. Might eBay some of it.

snarky comments about them being in bin bags once so gave up. I mean, what else do I transport 3 bin bags worth of clothes in?

That's insane. People call them bin bags because their common use is for holding rubbish in the bin, but essentially they're just strong, handy receptacles for anything until/unless you put them in the bin and then start throwing potato peelings and empty crisp packets in them. In fact, people normally just neutrally call them 'black bags' until they're being bought/used in a bin context, at which point they become 'bin bags'. I'd love to know what they were expecting them to be sent in otherwise - brand new Louis Vuitton luggage?

I just bin stuff these days. One charity shop binned (boxed, sealed) lego right in front of me. Well, I can do that without going to their shop. So it either goes on freecycle or in the bin

Could it have been dumped outside the shop? Under no circumstances were we allowed to sell anything that had been left outside the shop when the shop was closed. It had to be considered a health hazard and binned. I took a peek in a few dumped bags and it all looked like crap anyway, I imagine it would be upsetting to dispose of something that could have been a good earner. To this day it gives me the rage seeing bags left outside shops despite the signs telling them not to.

I'm surprised at the 'no books' as that's the only thing I do buy from charity shops!!

@SockYarn

It seems that charity shops let good items slip through that could earn them a lot more money. A Beswick china horse in a rare colour way raised £4,000 for a charity shop

Believe me, we really try not to. But in our shop we have one ancient desktop computer to look things up on. You can't expect everyone to know about everything - i'd recognise the name Beswick, and am shit hot at finding hallmarks on jewellery, but i'm lost when it comes to old cameras or paintings. We do have other people who are more expert in that area but it's also a balance. With the sheer volume of stuff we have to process, you simply can't spend even 10 minutes looking everything up. So you do your best, and unavoidably some things slip through the net.

It is probably a good idea if unsure to put it on Ebay ...If your charity has stuff listed online.

I was just so glad that the charity got the money, rather than a dealer.

It can't be easy. A woman listed a very valuable Beswick horse at £5 Buy it now.... and a very nice original condition bow rocking horse at £195...

I didn't buy them, but they were sold within seconds.

Round here we have a free page on local facebook group and people put stuff on there for others
Normally always someone willing to take

During the lockdown, there were bags and bags of stuff dumped outside the local Barnado's charity shop. The shop had been shut for months.
What looked clean, dry and sellable, I took home - more than one trip- disinfected and washed it, then took it to shops that were taking donations.

The bags left get treated like fly-tipping by the council.

Have a look locally for groups that take clothes, toys, household stuff, There’s one near me that give to ppl moving into a first home from being homeless, in a refuge etc

I've turned back to Ebay for good quality kids' clothes, and it seems buyers have too. If it's branded, someone's searching for it.

Books can go on the second hand bit on Amazon.

I'm not having it binned. I believe in re-using, not landfill, and if charity shops are going to sling decent stuff away I'm not risking it. I can make £1-8 per item selling on Ebay.

People who leave stuff outside charity shops when they are closed should begin forced to do community service in one.
A : it's legally classed as fly tipping
B : as someone said it's instantly classed as contaminated and therefore has to be chucked. It's One of those things that really pisses me off.

Contact the managers or the charities directly themselves and find out what they need/want.
Lots of charities move stuff around to ensure better selling items in particular areas go to the right location.
Don’t be put off by a surly volunteer in a shop.

It depends on shop and area. My local one (independent small charity) is so bloody rude I won’t go in any more to donate or buy. I would only donate very decent things but the manageress just put her hand up and said “No thank you !!” I get that they get a lot of crap offloaded but they missed a trick with me as into the Salvation Army went 20 of dh’s posh-make work shirts (he lost four stone!!). Now the independent charity shop has a rude sign outside saying “No Donations”.

I am a big book buyer but most charity shops dislike books. I think that is a reflection of where I live (snob alert) as if a book is not a celebrity autobiography or a cupcake twattery thing it’s unsaleable.

Depending on your area but round us people have been putting boxes of toys/books etc outside their houses for others to help themselves to, sometimes advertised on the local Facebook group or just with signs up. I’ve got rid of things like football boots and wellies that I would have normally taken to a charity shop.

Have a look on Facebook or ask on a Facebook page for your local area for any Facebook thrift pages. There’s quite a few for my local area and things I’ve put on have been collected within the hour. It’s a great way to recycle.

Any ''Early's of Witney'' horse blankets or ''Point blankets'' or 'Earlywarm'' have a good value.
These are things that people could otherwise think of as ''worthless'' and chuck out.
Seems there is a definite following for these traditional blankets if in good condition.
Have seen several Early's horse blankets sell at £50 ish plus recently.