To think charity donations aren't appreciated?

[USERJ]

I saw a viral Tik tok of a lady in what looked like a donation centre, going through the bags and making complaints about what people have put in these bags. (Dirty clothes I agree is completely unwanted!!)
But some things she complained about were a pair of high heeled shoes, a religious outfit and some items which can be considered out of fashion. Now whilst I appreciate if you had just lost everything in an earthquake you may not be thinking of high heels straight away but surely they would be of use to someone? Someone who needs heels for a job? For a job interview? Or for any special occasions coming up?
The religious outfit she seemed to mock just makes me lost for words. I then looked at the comments and similar videos were shared from different donation centres of other volunteers complaining for example a sports top that was bobbly...like really?? (My clothes are bobbly!!)
I'm not saying all donation centres do this but AIBU to be annoyed by watching this video?

I'm another one who has two boxes/ bags. One for rags and one for charity. I also wash and fold neatly clothes I'm donating, any games etc I make sure all bits are there. I also batch my charity boxes so that all children's clothes are in one box, books in another, kitchen bits in another etc. So that it's an easy sort at the charity end. I always think would I want to buy this. I also donate to a local volunteer group work wear, overalls, safety shoes etc for their volunteers to use. Anything not suitable for charity goes in the rag/ shoe bin, again clean/paired up .

This charity was asking donations for people displaced who had lost family and everything they own. If you saw the second video she explained that they received dirty underwear, unwearable items. I disagreed when they pulled out children's party dresses, with Eid around the corner it could have be worn.

I can't help but think we put ourselves on a pedestal when we expect people to be happy with these, dirty, old clothes as shown in video. Because they are people just like us. In the midst of a catastrophe. They need warm clothes, toiletries, sanitary items, nappies, blankets. Not a clear-out of cast off items deserving of the dump. It takes two minutes to buy and donate, actually useful items.

Imagine being there surviving with your kids, and not having nappies, items you really need. I think that was the essence message.

I have seen my local charity shop van at the dump. They were dumping bags of clothes and other items and big items like furniture. It was all in good condition. There was a retro tv unit with glass that was expensive - maybe £100 worth.

I won’t be donating there again. Why didn’t they sell it for 50p rather than trash it?! Especially when there’s a cost of living crisis and someone skint could have bought it all.

This is very true. The number of times someone has handed over a bag and said "there's some really good stuff in there" and you open it up and it's all unsellable stuff like chipped mugs, fake handbags, ridiculously bobbly clothing or broken toys. People have emotional attachment to their "stuff" and convince themselves that they are being amazingly generous. I do also think they are super conscious that they don't want to put stuff in landfill so pass it to us.

Clothing which can't be sold can go to be recycled. Some of it is resold here or overseas, the stuff which is past it gets shredded, treated, and used for things like mattress stuffing.

I understand the emotional response to the earthquake and feeling that you want to help. But although it might make YOU feel better to have a bit of a clear out and hand in a bag with some old clothing and sleeping bags that is really not helping. They have clothing in other parts of Turkey. And what's more efficient - collecting thousands of bags of random clothing which has to be assessed, sorted into categories, repacked, transported across Europe, unpacked in Turkey, then find a local partner to help distribute OR let the big charities like Red Cross, Oxfam, Save the Children who have been doing this sort of work for 80 years buy 5000 jumpers/coats from one of their suppliers, fly them in on an aid flight and use their established network to distribute? Same thing happened this time last year in Ukraine.

And yes, a large amount of the problem is fast fashion, shopping as a hobby not because you need new clothes, "hauls" on Instagram. We should all be buying less stuff. The planet is drowning in it.

One of our local charities used to run a dress agency so the charity and the seller got half each. The place was always packed. I have things, and non-clothes, that I would love to do this with as I don't sell via eBay etc.

Donating clothes generally is not helpful to those affected by the earthquake. Massive logistics required to sort, transport and distribute. And very demeaning to just be given clothes, esp if inappropriate. Everyone should give money if they can. It’s used best by local and international organisations who know how best to help

The problem is that while something may objectively be worth £100, you need the right buyer and it might not even sell at 50p.

We've had items which sell on ebay for £20 (we have a £30 minimum for ebay items) which we can't even sell for £1 because it's niche or not commercial.

And as regards the earthquake, some person on our local news was asking for unwanted medicines to be donated rather than given back to the pharmacy. She wasn't a doctor. I can't help feeling that is wrong on all sorts of fronts.

Also, people if we reject your donation it's not personal.

Black glass TV units don't sell (even tried to give them away free at one point), we legally can't take car seats, we don't have the space for Christmas trees in January, we don't take H&S equipment such as wheelchairs as it's a liability.

We also do uplifts and ask if furniture has the fire safety label on the phone. DO NOT LIE TO US. We wont "just uplift it anyway" and you'll have wasted the charity's time.

You know it costs money to ship objects to a third country? Quite often it costs significantly more than buying the items locally (as well as undermining local economies struggling to recover).

Additionally the type of clothing provided may not be appropriate to the conditions - most people in the UK will have no clue about what is best or sufficient for that part of the world.

Disaster zones are not dumping grounds. Sell the stuff if its any good, and send the proceeds - its more useful.

And nobody wants tv units. However well made. We had two of those black glass ones in the shop for weeks, probably expensive new as they were sturdy and heavy. Think we started off at a tenner each. Didn't sell. Half priced to £4.99. Didn't sell. Half priced again to £2.49, didn't sell. At that point, one went in the skip, the other we use in the window covered with fabric to display things on. Bulky items are very hard to sell as people need to arrange transport to take them away. If you have come on the bus, you can't easily take it home.

This idea that anything will sell if it's cheap enough is just so wrong. Off the top of my head things which will not sell because nobody wants - men's "work" shirts unless BNWT. Ties, even the silk ones. Cut glass decanters. CD stands/racks. VHS video cassettes. Loom bands. Cold shoulder style tops.

My clothes are bobbly, but I wouldn’t donate them to someone who has just lost their whole world. You should be annoyed at the people who donate useless crap, not the video highlighting it.

I disagree. Items donated may not be of any practical use for all sorts of reasons, but that doesn't mean those items are "useless crap" to the person donating. You have no idea what that persons life is like or what they have in their wardrobe (assuming they have a wardrobe). Your "useless crap" could have been the best clothes they had. Not everyone is able to donate pristine clothes new from the shop. It is crass of either staff or volunteers to post such rude and judgemental videos, and they should be ashamed of themselves - to say nothing of the fact that it harms the charity.

Yes, some people may deliberately dump their rubbish on charities. It is easy enough to dispense with those things quietly. But some of that "rubbish" may be their cherished items. Not everyone enjoys the lifestyle you obviously do.

As for what someone who has lost their whole world would want, if a bobbly jumper is the thing available when it is freezing cold, I am pretty sure they'd like it. This is a disaster, not a fashion parade.

Thing is no one has to donate. It's better to not donate than donate inappropriate things that just waste time. It shouldn't be about the warm fuzzy feelings of the person donating.

There is plenty of appropriate clothing being manufactured far closer to this area. Money to buy this is a no brainer.

But @Quveas the time taken in sorting all those donations and transporting them is just not efficient. Big charities could be on the phone this morning to a supplier in Turkey, or a second hand warehouse in Turkey and have 5000 jumpers or coats in Gazientep by this afternoon. That's what is needed. Not people all over Europe donating their old clothes which need to be assessed, sorted, transported. We are not doing a good thing by dumping our waste on them.

It really is VERY simple when it comes to donating to a charity shop. Would I pay good money for this item? Would I be happy to give it to my mum/sister/friend to use? If yes, donate it. If you wouldn't give it to a neighbour/friend but have this vague idea that "someone" might be able to get use of it, don't. Because that "someone" is probably not out there.

And also echo what @slashlover says about laws and policies. We have a big long list of what we can't sell by law, and what we don't sell by policy. Things like toy guns, anything racist/sexist/homophobic (golly toys, for example), safety equipment like car seats, life jackets, rubber rings, cot mattresses, anything fake/counterfeit, anything electrical which plugs into the mains (must be PAT tested and we can't), children's nightwear/clothing without the fire warning, toys without the CE label... list is endless.

I donate a lot to my local charity shop - lost socks/faded shit washed and in a separate bag marked “clean for recycling”.

im finding it difficult to part with my heels but too immobile to walk in them. I’ll definitely donate at some point and envisage the local teens tottering around on a Friday night.

I don’t sell the stuff (even if bnwt) because frankly I can’t be arsed with eBay/Vinted/postage/dishonest buyers.

Not that hard to sell stuff on ebay to benefit specific charities.

We love people who give us bags clearly marked "rags" or "recycling".

Thanks so much to everyone who takes the time to do that.

Someone's "useless crap" may be useful to another person but that doesn't justify dumping non saleable stuff on charity shops just for the feelgood factor. All you are doing is making work and costing them money.

Shipping bobbly jumpers which may or may not be suitable for the weather conditions to a disaster zone just costs them money and undermines the local economy.

Send money. If you can't send money then find someone who actually wants the stuff you no longer need, don't expect someone else to rehouse your unsaleable goods.

If you don't have spare cash, you shouldn't feel the need to donate anything - you should keep your money for you and your family. If you have spare clothes in good quality you should either sell them to support yourself or donate to those in need locally - our old school uniforms to the PTA; coats, scarves, trainers to the asylum seekers group etc.

Giving old clothes to be sorted, shipped to and distributed within a country that is one of the biggest manufacturers of clothes in the world is mental.

I’ve always been mindful of what I donate, I went with a bag full of nearly new baby clothes etc recently and the woman went through it in front of me and wouldn’t let me go until she had done. It was horrible for me feeling like a bad person.

she ended up taking it all without a thanks and it put me off donating again. I usually sell my stuff
now, give it away for free or recycle the fabric.

I still shop in charity shops I think that reusing clothes and minimising fast fashion is important I just wish it wasn’t such a controversial thing to do these days!

I have worked in a charity shop and only a small perecentage of the clothes donated ever made it into the shop. Most of the volunteers' time was spent sorting out those that were worth selling from the dross. Charity shops get so many donations now that they can't cope with the piles of waste clothing. I would ask that people only send good quality clean clothing to a charity shop and suggest they take the rest to a supermarket clothes bank so it can be recycled.

While I agree it's in poor taste to mock people who are just trying to help, there is an important message here, the TLDR is don't send items to disaster zones, if you want to help send cash, if you have no cash try and help in other ways such as spreading awareness, writing to your MP to push for increased government aid or volunteering time to run fundraising events. But don't send "stuff".

We had this when war in Ukraine broke out (when it seemed every man and his dog was hiring a transit van, loading it with random donated stuff and driving to Poland, the poor overwhelmed Polish border towns suddenly becoming a warehouse for all Europe's guilty conscience), and pretty much after every natural or man-made humanitarian crisis ever. It's well meaning but misguided. You will pretty much never see a reputable disaster aid charity like DEC, Red Cross, MSF ask for donations of items or 'stuff' to be sent to disaster zones, and this is a really interesting Article about why that is. Cash is much more useful and can be effectively distributed by a reputable charity towards paying for exactly what is needed on the ground, food, clothing, medical supplies (which can often be purchased locally for less than the cost of shipping the same donated goods from Europe plus this supports the local economy and makes more environmental sense), or perhaps even more importantly, to pay for medical, logistical, civil engineering, construction help to rebuild the community and people's lives, reducing the time period where people are dependent on outside help.

Whoever said about environmentalism and low waste culture perhaps contributing to the trend I think may be right, I'm a member of a few nutty "zero waste" social media groups (people who aim to literally throw away nothing, ever) and while the majority of the advice is sensible and aimed at helping people consume less and reuse what they already have, some people do chime in with nutty suggestions about what to do with obvious rubbish like very well worn underwear or broken kitchenware, which is always along the lines of making it someone else's problem - donate it to a local school or nursery for the children to play or do crafts with is a common one (like any nursery is going to give the children a handleless chipped cheap saucepan to play kitchens with or a headless Barbie for 'crafts'!), or some people do seem to think charity shops are essentially recycling centres for things that have outlived their usefulness to anyone!

I sort donations out for a long standing charity. There is some absolute junk given that is for only fit for the bin. The charity has to pay for this to be disposed. Most clothes can go in the rag bag so some money but a broken candlestick or picture frame is no use.

Old clothing not really fit for purpose or unwanted medicine is useful only if already there - fast, immediate neighborhood help.

It can work in a small scale if someone (who knows a place and people both inside and outside of the disaster area) personally bridges the gap, but it rarely makes sense with a bigger distance than neighbor state.
Exception are things which are totally out of stock everywhere between point of need and you (balistic protection for Ukraine was such example)

Sell locally and raise money. Or just give locally.

Some donations are basically "too bothered to dump it on recycling site", so I agree with outrage, but some requests are being ridiculous. I remember one request (it wasn't in the UK) for donations of new toys and puzzles for children. Due to covid they didn't want anything not packed in brand new packaging. This is ridiculous. Ask for money instead!?

I stopped supporting big charities and donate only to small ones where I can see actual work.