Charity shop donations

[Seymour5]

I'm a volunteer in a charity shop, and it's an eye opener. The items for sale are gratefully received, even unsaleable old and torn clothing is sold in bulk, as are damaged books.

However, donations regularly include: Chipped and cracked ceramics and glass; bog standard odd plates, cups, saucers; odd bits of cutlery; ancient plastic utensils; bags full of plastic coathangers; shoes with soles hanging off; opened and part used toiletries; broken toys.

My question is, who do donors think would buy a broken toy for their child? Or a filthy, plastic drainer, or a torn lampshade?

I'm another who buys odd crockery. None of our crockery matches, I just buy anything brightly coloured from the charity shop.

@Left

Like people who donate their Christmas decs in January.

Yes! And Halloween decorations in November.

We had to refuse so many Christmas trees last January. If we politely decline something then it's for a good reason. For example, we have no way to test car seats for safety so we don't accept them. We find one dumped round the side of the building at least once a month by people.

I'm an odd crockery buyer. The matching dinner set I got 30 years ago brand new has lost some pieces and the only places I can find replacements are in charity shops.

I expect people have good intentions if they have made the effort to drop the stuff off though. Also clothes hangers could be used in the shop

I expect people have good intentions if they have made the effort to drop the stuff off though. Also clothes hangers could be used in the shop

Most people do. However, many times I have arrived to find piles of black bags dumped outside in the rain, broken/damaged items, filthy items, unsafe items, items NOBODY would want (half completed colouring book anyone? A bag of Barbie dolls with all their hair cut off? A toy completely covered in felt tip pen?)

Interestingly, our rates of donations shot up when the bin schedule changed from 2 to 3 weeks and the dump started needing appointments.

I would put up cctv and put up a sign saying anyone leaving junk will be reported to the council for fly tipping.

This op is why i no longer donate anything,last time i washed lots of clothes but got told " sorry we only take m and s "
so i gave them to a friend who was doing a boot sale and she sez sold the lots in 10 mins for £20.00 .
also like to say that i ran an antigue shop for years and every day i would go to peoples houses and sort out what they had,very rarely was there anything i wished to buy and every day people would dump some old teapots in store after i said they have no value .
all this is par for the course - its what you put up with for the occasioncal Clarice Cliff caster (chipped) and a jug Sold for £ 82 inc. premium .
Also i buy odd bits of kitchen stuff and naff coffee cups - the kind given away by plumbers - but no charity shops bothered selling them anymore,they think they are a mini john lewis .
and from my dealing with the public most are clueless about value of old stuff,they are not calpable of sorting out the wheat from chaff .
every day i would give free valuations often to charity shops and where has it got me ? relative poverty whilst oxfams ceo is buying a yacht .

@RandomUsernameHere

I expect people have good intentions if they have made the effort to drop the stuff off though. Also clothes hangers could be used in the shop

Given the state of some of the donations described on this thread and similar threads in the past, I suspect that some people view taking stuff to charity shops as a more convenient alternative to the tip.

This happens at the school i work. We have a second-hand uniform shop and parents donate crud. Things that are stained with ragged edges, faded, torn. And they dump bags of non uniform clothes as well. Like dirty adult pants
It drives me mad as I have to wash and iron stiff thats just dirty (in my free time) and then do tip runs or charity runs with any good quality not uniform.(in my free time)

People need to think 'would i pay money for this' 'is this what the charity in question needs'

Is this why there are never any bowls in charity shops?

I think they are too expensive. A lot of the stuff is cheaper to buy new. People don't go to charity shops to buy expensive things. I appreciate it takes time to sort things out, but maybe they could do bulk buy deals e.g. buy 5 things get 1 free to encourage the stuff to shift. Also dislike the trend of charity shops selling cheap new rubbish

I’m feeling very bad now about putting a bundle of IKEA kids hangers in my last donation bag. I was happy to pay good money for them, and I’m only letting them go because they’re too small for us now. I’d have been delighted to find them at a charity shop a few years ago.

I wish shops would put up a list of what they can and can’t accept so that we don’t have to guess.

My DH runs 2 charity shops, up to last week there was a requirement to quarantine everything for at least 48 hour (some shops quarantined them for 72) now quarantine means just that he couldn't open bags or boxes for 2/3 days, one of his shops has only 1 small pen so when that was full he had to turn away donations, imagine how he felt when he DID open bags/boxes only to find them full up with totally unsellable goods and he had to turn away potentially good donations that would actually sell, things like hangers, videos broken cutlery that he cant sell have to be put in the rubbish, the Charity PAYS for that - his head office queried a invoice for nearly £400 for the month of October which was paid out due to the amount of fly tipping he had outside his shop, that's £400 that couldn't be used to help the homeless, run foodbanks and support elderly people and families which is what the charity use the money for and NO they don't have CEOs on megabucks

@stackemhigh

I would put up cctv and put up a sign saying anyone leaving junk will be reported to the council for fly tipping.

Yep my DH does just that and the notices are completely and utterly ignored

A lot of the time charity shop stuff is too expensive, now buy from eBay

Before my local oxfam closed down - it had a sign saying " vintage jewellery wanted " many seem to have lost the plot .
When people buy stuff from anywhere they are paying for the labour,the sorting out ,the storage over winter etc
If a CS wants donations ready to sell then they should close down and tell people to ebay everything and post the cash .
you can not have your cake and eat it .

It’s never acceptable to dump rubbish on a charity to get rid of for you. I used to live in a women’s refuge and we got so many lovely things donated to us which we were always grateful for. However, we also got a load of absolute shite including a bag of neatly unwashed towels. If they’d just been chucked in any old way I’d have assumed there had been a mix up but no these towels were (heavily) stained and definitely not clean. Along with shoes with holes in the soles, stuff that smelled like it had been stored in someone’s shed or garage and been pissed on by mice or similar and a very battered, unsafe looking buggy. People can be so generous but others can be selfish cunts.

Whaling in with solidarity with Slashlover & Seymour *virtual high fives
We have 3 notices up regarding leaving junk & still turn up every morning to wet bin bags
The things people are donating at the moment are unreal
If you think “it’ll do somebody” think again - it won’t

Do people really have the mind space to have three boxes named Charity, tip or keep?

Er, yes.
Donating things that are fit for the bin (be it clothes or bric-à-brac) just costs your chosen charity shop money as they have to pay to dispose of it.
I really urge you to look though what you're donating and think "Why am I getting rid of this and would anyone else pay money for it?". If the jumper is too bobbled for you, or the Tupperware too discoloured, then no.
People don't buy anything that broken or torn, stained or worn out. The shop can't sell it. Don't waste their time and money by using them as a waste disposal service.

(Side note: some - but not all - charity shops will take rags (ie unsaleable clothes and textiles) for recycling which they sell on by the kg or bag to a textiles dealer. This can include old towels, faded curtains, holey socks etc; anything that is not deemed suitable for sale to people in developing countries is shredded for insulation or otherwise recycled. It's polite to check with the shop first and bag it separately so they don't have to waste time going through it)

@PurpleFrames

Is it right that you get paid for rags recycling though? That's why I would give clothes in not the best condition rather than just bin them- perhaps that's wrong?

Obviously I do donate decent things too

The charity I volunteer for does send fabrics for rag, and gets money for it. It helps if you bag clothes that are honestly beyond wear separately and mark it clearly “rag” .

But other things, like broken toys, furniture, broken crockery, vhs machines, dodgy looking microwaves etc etc etc have to be disposed of, and the council charge us for that. So whereas —dumped— donated crap could have been taken down to the council waste disposal place by its owners and got rid of for free, the charity ends up paying for things that aren’t even theirs to be put into landfill.

Do people really have the mind space to have three boxes named Charity, tip or keep?

I have a Bag for Life in the car that I've been adding to for the charity shop. I keep forgetting to take it though.

I volunteer at a charity shop and opened last week after the lockdown .
I tend to do the sorting as I can get through a mountain of stuff quite quickly as I know what sells & what is rags
Also so it makes room that day to take in more donations to be quarantined as we get so much and do get a decent amount of sellable items so want to take in as much as possible
Well all I can say that in the last week the amount of unsellable toot that has been donated is crazy . I’d say 80% is unsellable
These are just a few things I’ve found this week

A whole black bag full of men’s jogging bottoms bobbled& stained with no crutch left at all Couldn’t even rag them due to the smell
Pillows straight from a bed including the dribble stained pillow case .
Dirty sofa pillows with tears in the case
Used dirty men’s & women’s underwear
Broken Christmas decorations
Sticky dirty Tupperware with no lids
A rusty old wood saw sticking out a black bin bag ( so dangerous)
Someone also dumped a massive netting bag full of muddy old footballs outside our shop once even tho we was open
It all has to be thrown away and takes up so much space
We do however get some absolutely wonderful donations so it’s not all bad and can put up with the odd dirty pair of pants 😁
I just feel a few people just can’t be bothered to go to the tip .
As for coat hangers a lot of shops don’t accept them as like our shop they are a certain style and colour that are issued to us as it makes the shop look more aesthetic and neat .

Couldn’t even rag them due to the smell

What is that smell?? not envy

My dh loved charity shops and we used to buy stuff in good condition. But a lot of clothes you can buy for less in Primark brand new.

I've just donated unused Christmas presents to the local animal charity and the refuge. We have a local charity that takes furniture, clothing bric a brac and gives to poor families, also selling goods and running a food bank. The profits on the shop allow them to buy necessities like toiletries, nappies etc. There's a Just Giving page

I think people sometimes use them so they don't have to go to the tip. When I worked in one people would put nice stuff at the top of the bag so we'd take it, and then a load of dirty and broken stuff at the bottom. Or we'd put signs up saying we're not taking DVDs (we had hundreds and nobody bought them) so people would sneak DVDs at the bottom of a bag that they would tell us only contained clothes.

What is that smell?? envy not envy

Crotch smell?