Is this Facebook post reasonable or rude and ungrateful?

[Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircar]

Opinions in the comments are split. What's yours?

YABU - rude and ungrateful
YANBU - understandable

Badly worded and lacking in solutions.

What "solution" do you think the centre should suggest, other than "stop dumping shit we don't need", exactly?

Someone having left-over sandwiches is a not a problem they need to solve.

Yep. But people can get really weird and entitled about donating items to charities.

You have to have been beamed in from another planet not to be aware that you’re helping no one by shoving leftovers onto a charity’s doorstep.

This is what I mean. People have varying degrees of common sense/intelligence or may be neurodiverse, so someone could have thought they were doing a nice thing without realising it wasn't.

People who are not beamed from another planet should know how to put their point across politely.

I know this is a generalisation, but a great many people who are neurodiverse are significantly more particular than the average neurotypical person, when it comes to food. If a NT person wouldn't want to eat an abandoned sandwich that they spotted outside in the street, next to where everybody's dusty feet and pets/wild animals have passed by, I don't think most ND people are going to be less 'fussy' (for want of a better word) and eagerly tuck in.

If anything, I'd bet it's far more likely to be either somebody looking for an easy place to ditch unwanted food, with the added bonus of virtue-signalling; or otherwise ones of those 'beggars can't be choosers' type who are so arrogant and dismissive of their own privilege that they actually think that poor people should be grateful for food that could very likely make them ill.

It’s completely reasonable. Working for a charity where we do various collections I’ll be honest, we get some absolute shit at times and it’s obvious when people are offloading their crap on you. This looks like an Olio volunteer who’s run out of options so dumps on the doorstep of the food bank. Could be well meaning at the core of it, but there are practicalities that people just don’t consider.

I think you're missing out the group of potential supporters who are unsure of themselves - who want to help but are worried about being snubbed in some way.

If you're unsure of something, the natural human response is to ask somebody who knows - and don't just arrogantly assume you know better.

I'm sure if somebody phoned or messaged them and said "I have several packs of sandwiches that are use by today - can you use them at all?" - they would say "Thank you very much, but unfortunately we aren't able to distribute fresh food".

There's even a chance that, depending on the date and their schedules, they may actually have clients whom they could get them to in time - but obviously not if they've been left out to spoil. Even otherwise-ideal donations such as packets of rice or pasta would obviously have to be thrown away on safety grounds once they'd been abandoned outside in the street. It shouldn't need to be spelled out, but this is food - for people to eat. It's very much not the same as leaving out scraps for the wild birds.

It isn't the offer of food that is unreasonable; it's the assumption and dumping of it. It's the equivalent of your car needing an MoT... but instead of calling the garage and arranging a suitable time for you to bring it in or for them to collect it, like a reasonable person would do, just parking your car up across the front of their premises on a Sunday and thinking "Well, they're an MoT garage, so I'm sure that's the appropriate way for when they arrive in tomorrow."

I don't mean that the uncertain people would donate sandwiches without asking. I mean that they might look on the Facebook page to see what they could donate, read that post berating the sandwich donors and think 'I'm not going to risk offering them those unwanted tins of Irish Stew from my Christmas hamper in case they jump down my throat' and not bother, when the tins of Irish Stew might have been fine to donate.

I'm sure it costs the charity more to dispose of the rubbish that they would lose from unsure people not donating some 50p tins.

It's a completely different context, though. Why would somebody looking up the best/proper/helpful way to donate useable food in advance worry about their reaction, purely based on the charity's clear frustration at people fly-tipping rubbish (albeit it previously would have been useable food)?

It's a bit like the people who denounce a particular celebrity for being rude and horrible in real life... then it turns out they aren't basing their experience on meeting them at an event where they're appearing, but rather on their reaction when they tried to accost them for a selfie the second they emerged from a toilet cubicle when out privately for a meal with their family!

Either you're that sort of person or you're not, and if you're not, you won't get it. Shy/rejection-sensitive - however you might phrase it. There's a type of person and I'm one of them, who will play out this kind of scenario in advance - turning up at food bank with donation, and how you and it might be received, and if the film in your mental cinema shows the possibility of an embarrassing rejection, you won't do the thing.

By embarrassing rejection, I don't mean being told 'thanks for thinking of us, but we can't use this' - I mean the sort of brusque 'don't you dare try to dump this stuff here' response that the FB post is suggestive of.

Looking at the actual FB page and the comments, it seems that the unsuitable food being dumped donated has been an ongoing problem for a while. If someone just leaves it with no forwarding details, then posting on social media is a way to address the person doing it.

If you're bothered by rejection you do your homework first don't you? e.g. send them a message via social media and find out, rather than just leaving it to the elements and scarpering.
When I have a bag of items for the charity shop I always ask if they're currently accepting donations. As an introvert not great on interaction with strangers this doesn't come naturally to me, but I'd rather do this than making my issue an issue for them to deal with.

I don't mean that the uncertain people would donate sandwiches without asking. I mean that they might look on the Facebook page to see what they could donate, read that post berating the sandwich donors and think 'I'm not going to risk offering them those unwanted tins of Irish Stew from my Christmas hamper in case they jump down my throat' and not bother, when the tins of Irish Stew might have been fine to donate.

You can be uncertain and capable of reading comprehension and logic. A post saying "we welcome tinned items but bread is a problem" wouldn't be interpreted by most people as saying "tinned items are unwelcome".

That post is in the same tone of the OP on the Asda pizza thread. Wonder if people have been leaving pre-made pizzas on the doorstep.

That's difficult for you, I'm sure; but the charity can't just sit back and ignore or sweet-talk people who are sabotaging the efficiency of their operations and costing them unnecessary time and money, for fear of upsetting genuine supporters/donors of a sensitive disposition.

They're having to pay for the fly-tipped waste to be disposed of at commercial rates - every pound they spend on that is a pound that can't be used for the benefit of their needy clients.

Surely if you're expressing concern about how you might be received when you turn up, that means that you're going during their opening hours and talking to somebody before offering your donation. This person isn't deigning to do that - they're just regularly fly-tipping during the time when they're closed; very likely because they know that their 'donation' is hurting the organisation and the needy people, rather than helping them.

If you opened your front door at home and found a bag/pile of once-fresh food that had been left out of the fridge for an unknown amount of time - likely a number of hours - would you take it in and eat it? Neither should poor people be expected to risk their health by eating rancid food that could easily make them ill.