Why do people waste so much or is it me being unreasonable

Charity shops can't always take everything, a friend had a beautiful 3 piece suite in superb condition that no-one would take because unfortunately she had removed the label that showed it passed fire regs. She had no alternative in the end but to take it to the tip.

I hate seeing things thrown away. I had a go at my youngest the other day for taking something to the tip that could have been passed to someone else. Where I used to live I would often put things out in front and they disappeared really quickly...off to new homes. There are so many ways to get rid of things and the fashion is very much about up cycling now.

I'm a new gran, babyboy just 6 months old. It makes me so happy to hand him the toys his auntie and his dad played with! I kept all my good stuff, like FisherPrice and Lego, and it's just as fun as it was 32 years ago! I also kept sheets and blankets, bibs, muslins, baby-bathtub etc. I only thrash what's really used up, other stuff I donate/pass on. It works both ways, a friend gave me a perfectly good but pre-walked stroller!

Lots of things here.....
We live in a consumer society, where everything is purchased using credit, but my parents were refugees who arrived with what they could carry. They turned into desperate hoarders and it is hard for me to live a middle road. Everything I do let go is then wanted/needed a few weeks later! I recycle a great deal, but have had a table turned down by a charity as we had used yacht varnish on the bare wood and were asked "what if a child chews it and is poisoned?" We managed to sell it eventually.

As for books..... I am active with Friends of the Library in Torbay. Our main fundraiser is 2nd hand books!! Kind people donate good quality no longer wanted books, and a steady stream of readers buy the paperbacks at £1 and hardbacks for £2. Astonishingly the sales realise around £50 each month. The proceeds sponsor free books for babies, the Lego club, the summer reading challenge and pays for speakers at the over 50's club, among other things.

We're lucky - living in a small city we have lots of charity shops, including an Oxfam shop which sells nothing but books and music. One annoying aspect is that we have many streets where driving is restricted so we can't deliver by car.

When I worked at my Charity shop when we had a surplus of books "The Book Man" would call every 2 weeks and take away the books for resorting,he would pay us x£s per kilo so we did not loose out completly on the donation some shops have to refuse due to storage space and health & safety regs they could be tripped over by volunteers if not stored away.
When we lived abroad every night the large collection bins next to apartments/villas had nearly new furniture left next to them and people spent the hour or two before collection time helping themselves to all sorts of household goodsthat people left when they moved.

Agree.

bluebelle
Mine was carpet . The vendor of a two bed bungalow DH and self once bought left his fitted bright purple lounge and bedroom carpet . We couldn't remove it quick enough and overnight, prior to taking where we could legally dispose of, left them next to our refuse bins. The carpets disappeared.By who ?we found out later when they came back and asked if we had more of the same.
No accounting for taste.

I agree there are far too many useful items consigned to the landfill. I have recently found a site called www.freecycle.org , it is nationwide but is split into regions/towns, so there is sure to be one near where you live, I have a friend who had to leave home and find lodgings quickly, she rented a small flat and moved in with nothing but personal belongings and very little money due to first/last months rent and security deposit. We went to www.freecycle.org and furnished and equipped the whole flat from there in a weekend and I mean everything, bed, 3 piece suite, table and chairs, all kitchen appliances, cooker, fridge freezer microwave oven, crockery, cutlery, bed linen etc etc. all of this would have gone to landfill and my friend would still be trying to equip her flat. I call this a win win situation and hope more people consider giving useful items away rather than throwing them away. All the donor has to do is give a description of the unwanted items and stipulate collection.

We are hoping to move, so we're decluttering after 40 years here. A lot of time has been spent taking some things to the charity shops, ebaying items and putting others on freegle. I have used Ziffit and We Buy Books to sell a lot of books. As said here, there really is no need to just throw a lot of stuff out, although there is always some that needs to be taken to the dump

When my mother died we took some of the furniture to use ourselves, the rest went to her local Sue Rider home where they renovate and sell it on. Many other charities do the same. We also had the problem with non-fireproof sofas, though they were so old that they would not have contained the dangerous fume producing synthetic foam.

Loved the kerbside thing in Perth and I have been told they used to do this in Germany too. I have seen it done here but just on a random basis, an organised day would be great. I know someone who was trying to get a charity to take their not very old sofas, they tried 3 and they were rejected by all - not because of safety hazards but because they were too ‘used’ and the charity’s clientele were particular about what they purchased! They gave up and sent them to the tip

We too use plastic food containers for seed boxes, but there's a limit to how many you actually need!! We live deep in the countryside so are able to incinerate a lot of waste without incurring any problems. We do worry very much about the amount of plastic going into the environment and try to do all we can to alleviate this. I have a friend who years ago almost completely furnished her flat from skips and charity/junk shops. These days I would think you could do a complete job!! It's shocking what goes to waste, sometimes things that are nearly new, food that is perfectly edible. I was brought up in the 1950's when waste of any kind was next door to a mortal sin, so for me, old habits die hard!!

Charity shops not only waste a high percentage of what they are given but they have spoilt the 'jumble sale' sector where people could buy stuff to make do and mend withm and they sell bulk clothing to third word countries and decimate their own textile industries.

The high streets are full or them coasting along with low or no rates, free stock and unpaid staff.

I find some of the so called 'charity' work that goes on reprehensible.

I agree we waste too much but who is building houses with attics now???

Our local tip used to keep aside anything decent that came in to sell. As others have said it's surprising what people dump, we have bought some nice thing from there, but now the council won't allow it any more for some reason, so it all goes to waste, very sad!

My new neighbour has a teenage grandson living with her. I passed him earlier this week chucking a plastic bottle right over the road over a hedge into the field opposite. Was tempted to say something but I held my tongue, because as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have had to call the HT and police over her behaviour and I don't want the hassle.

Am now looking for a reasonable priced retirement property. We keep being told that the young are being taught they need "to look after our world". don't see much evidence of it. I wouldn't have minded but he was going to the bus stop where there is a bin!

Every Tuesday our church hall has a swap shop for children's clothes. My DD had bags of baby clothes that GD had grown out of, some were new. She swapped them all for the next size up and it was all lovely and good quality. Lots of school uniforms there too. Great idea I think.

Can I make a plea for people to think very carefully about what they take to charity shops.

I am sure no one on this forum is
guilty of this...but my husband works part time in a well known charity shop, and spends half his time shifting through rubbish that people have donated that is torn, dirty, broken and not fit for use. Charity shops are not meant to be a place for discarded rubbish that is better off taken to the tip.

Even worse are the bags left outside the shop at night. This is not good for the environment either as my husband spends time and petrol money driving to the tip with these ‘offerings’. This is not meant to be part of his job description.

So please...if something is not fit for purpose, please dispose of it considerately.

Totally agree. Today's society seems to encourage a here today, gone tomorrow culture. Waste not, want not, seems to have gone out of fashion! Even some of the Charity Shops won't take your things now as they are brimming over.

We are a very wasteful society these days and very materialistic. But many of us do try to recycle sensibly and I certainly do. I regularly take things to charity shops, and to our local tip where things are sorted and sold in the on-site shop if they are good enough.

I love to recycle and donate goods when I can. But have come upon obstacles when it comes to furniture. Charities won't take suites unless they have the fire safe label on them. I had immaculate solid oak furniture that I wanted to donate as we were revamping for our retirement. Charity refused to take most of it as it was too big and heavy for their needs.

I had an outdoor patio lunch with a neighbour/friend who had, the previous day, had a meeting in London and, driving through, had seen a patio umbrella shade in a skip and brought it home. He slotted it into the stand under the table and it was HUGE with a fringe and looked new.
When I saw it I ran into my house and grabbed the previous day's Daily Mail which showed 6 of the best summer canopies/parasol. His rescued 'sunshade was there, exactly as it appeared over our lunch table.
It was from Conran and the price, as eye-watering £4,995. I kid you not. Mahogany handle and motorised winching mechanism. All perfect and it was that summer's stock.

I've always been of the "make do and mend" brigade but sadly the younger members of the family don't share that ethos. I get really bl**dy mad with my DIL who point blank refuses to have anything other than new for the GC - most of it doesn't even get used before its outgrown/no longer needed so I've stopped buying and now put money into savings each month instead. If her kids didn't get round to using whatever doesn't she realise that a lot of the "second hand" stuff she turns her nose up at also hasn't been used! I love a bargain and we wouldn't have been able to do so much with or for our family if we'd insisted on new.

Where I live in Worcestershire we have a very active local Freecycle group, and I believe they have groups all over the UK. You post a description of what you have to give away on their website, and then people contact you by email if they’re interested. You can also put on “wanted” ads I think once you've made a certain number of offers. I have given away quite a lot of surplus stuff, and gained a few good things too! (That, incidentally, is why I call myself Womble, “The things that the everyday folk leave behind.”)

I have advertised (free of charge) lots of stuff in the Freebies section of Gumtree. Amazing how cheeky and entitled some people can be. One woman replied asking me to phone a friend of hers and ask if they could arrange a van to pick up the lounge suite! It went to a lovely young couple just starting out, their delight was a joy.
I recently uplifted a bookcase which was advertised on Gumtree as free, for use in my garage. The lady was surprised when I gave her a box of chocolates.