Donations to charity shops

There’s a clothes bank in the car park of our local Co-Op. one of those big, metal bins with a pull out hatch on the front. I’ve put several bags of good condition clothes in there during lockdown, when the charity shops were closed. I don’t know what happens to those donations, but I’m sure it’s better than taking perfectly good stuff to the tip.

Pensionpat
I trump your vibrator with my pink feather trimmed handcuffs and crotchless knickers. ?

I have read all these comments in amazement. I’m surprised anyone would help sorting in a charity shop after reading this. It’s really disgusting.
The only way is for staff to inspect the donations in front of the donor. Thank goodness for masks and rubber gloves.

Like every other charity we were over-run with donations of clothes so when we were locked down I took a lot to the tip. As I was “posting”clothes through the aperture I came across a white, shiny box that I thought would have a phone inside. No such luck! It was a vibrator. How thoughtful of someone to donate. It gave me a laugh though.

Our church is doing a clothing collection to raise funds. It's called Bags4thefuture. I'm sure all the donations will be washed though! I can't imagine donating unwashed items.

When my children were at primary school the school used to put a table of lost property out at the end of each term. Anything that was unclaimed was taken home by me, washed, then returned for a sale for school funds. We also included second hand uniform in the sales on a 50/50 basis so parents could get something back for their good quality items. I was treasurer of the 'friends' of the school and we raised quite a lot of money from our clothing sales. I was amazed at the quality items that were unclaimed from lost property and how many uniform items were un-named!

Our local community hall has a book swap scheme, ie bring one book and take another, or donate 50p if you aren't swapping. We get piles of horrible smelly mildewed books dumped on us. Sometimes the well-looked after shelves have been pillaged and a tray of rubbish 'swapped' in its place - we suspect a local trader. We now have CCTV so that might help.

Laziness firstly.The tips being limited opening. Its an hour and half wait to get in but that is no excuse,its just plain laziness cannot be bothered to sort them out.

I volunteer at a charity shop and yes we get allsorts dirty and clean.we all wear gloves and masks.you have to have a sense of humour too.I agree that people just dump any old cr## to us.yes we have to pay for our dustbin to be emptied.we salvage all we can.even rags get recycled to factories.only the broken stuff gets binned.

Try Amazon or Ziffit for books meryl eBay would not usually be useful for books unless they are very special

We must have very well behaved customers (although we are in a so called deprived area) We do sometimes get bags left outside but not very often and rarely rarely get anything bigger than a black bag or two and perhaps once every few weeks
All clothes however bad can be used and yes we do have some customers that tell us ‘this bag is rags’ which is great
grandmama no one bears the cost the bags left outside they will be taken inside and sorted we get money for rags as well as selling on the rails
If the charity is run properly there should be no cost for removal as everything should be used or in a few cases put in the commercial bin

I have just had a good clear out of clothes,very good condition and some new. I took some stuff to the local tip, very organised I made an appointment drove through at my allotted time and disposed of my rubbish. The next day I took my bags to the local charity shop admitting I had quite a lot, they refused to take all of them. I went to the shop opposite they couldn’t take the rest as the lady was on her own and couldn’t except anything. Also I do think some charity shops over charge for some items they sell. Yesterday my granddaughter had a letter from school from a company that wanted old clothes requesting parents to bring them along they would then be weighed and paid for and the school would be donated the money for the school. I thought that a brilliant idea.

On my walk into town I pass three charity skips. There are always piles of stuff dumped alongside them. Who bears the cost of removal? The local council? Or is the charity deemed to be responsible? It's fly tipping and and a blight on the area.

I have just given three black bin bags to the acorn hospice. I washed comforted and folded them neatly into the bags. Inside the bags I put a note in explaining what I've done and that they come from a pet and smoke free home. I wouldn't dream of giving them anything I wouldn't want to receive myself. Anything breakable I wrap up. The charity shop has to make money from what they receive to benefit the cause,and I get pleasure from helping.

Our recycling tip was closed for 6 months during the pandemic and you have to book a slot, so I have taken stuff to charity shops. I am taking it up with the council because you should not have to book.

BlueBelle
Left in our doorway yesterday a large stained baby buggy that a dog had been sleeping in. Together with a cracked baby bath.
A stack of old useless magazines. Lots of books that we have no more room for and other shops have the same problem with books. All these books were scanned to sell on eBay but no money there. One shoe ? That’s just yesterday.
And on it goes.

Hellsbelles

It would really help charity shop volunteers to bag up two lots when sorting out. One would be your decent, wearable items and the other marked up as rags. That way they don't have to bother sorting all the bags out. ( Just check beforehand they do send unwanteds to ragging )

I've done that because they get paid by weight by the ragman.
Ours are not keen on taking books either, particularly paperbacks although the Oxfam shop does a deal with a local antiquarian bookseller if anything is of value.

It's sheer laziness to just dump unsaleable items on charity shops.

It can be hard work at times but we do sell items on Facebook and then donate the proceeds to charity. It’s also possible to have a boot sale of unwanted things and we’re thinking of doing this and again donating any money we make. In our area the charity shops are overloaded with things.

It would really help charity shop volunteers to bag up two lots when sorting out. One would be your decent, wearable items and the other marked up as rags. That way they don't have to bother sorting all the bags out. ( Just check beforehand they do send unwanteds to ragging )

I don’t understand what they are paying for removal of ???
Our charity shop sells all the donations either in the shop on Amazon or eBay
All unwanted clothes/bedding/ material items that are not good enough are bagged for the rag man who pays per kilo
Towels/ duvets go to a local plumber who pays for bags full
Toys bric a brac and ‘small’ furniture items are distributed to other shops ( we don’t take in large furniture)

Of course we get our fair share of really mucky dirty soiled stuff that we sort through but that goes in the rag bags and has always been like that
Lastly a small amount goes into the trade refuse collection collected by the council commercial dustcart each week

No problem for us we ve never paid extra to have anything taken away

We are lucky, good stuff goes to Ebay or charity, depending upon how energetic I feel, if they aren't good enough for either, we can bag it, mark it TECTILES and our recycling men take it - life saver

It's such a good idea to sort the bags in front of the donor.I like to donate to charity shops,but only things that people would buy.They're not there to be used as a dumping ground.It's the same with the charity bins,they had to get rid of them at my local supermarket,people were dumping old duvets,broken toys,all sorts of things.

This is nothing new - I have been helping at jumble sales in the past, involving sorting the donations and I think that some people would be shocked and disgusted with some of the items that were donated that had to be thrown straight in a bin!
It is getting to the point that if local councils don't want clothing to be dumped or through the usual refuse service, that they provide a bin for clothing not good enough for charity shops, that is then recycled.

their's not there's!

I help at our village charity shop, ( all proceeds stay in the village). We are the cheapest charity shop I know of and at the moment we have a booking system for donations as we just don't have the space to store much. Everything has to be left for 72 hours before we can sort it so we are over run with bags and boxes waiting to be sorted. We do get dirty clothes and most staff know which people's bags not to sort, some just get tipped straight into the waste clothes bags, yes we sort out the shoes etc but none of them will go onto the shop floor. We try to recycle as much as possible and do get paid for things like clothes and shoes. I sort the books and try go pass on to other charities the ones we can't use. Just passed on 4 boxes to the air ambulance collector as we are over run with books at the moment. I wish I could find out how to sell the tatty books but I can't find out how the bigger charities deal with there's.

I am an enthusiastic supporter of my local charity shops and have been for many years. I have bought some lovely items there and often for ridiculously low prices. I always return the compliment by taking my own and my children’s/grandchildren’s unwanted items there. Old clothes unfit for sale are taken to the local ‘rag bin’ a large skip run by the council which recycles them. I would never insult these wonderful causes by taking items unfit for sale. Nor am I tempted to sell on eBay etc although some of the things could be sold for a decent amount no doubt. I always think that if I am fortunate enough to have so much, I ought to ‘spread the love’ in my small way.

It has always been like this. I was an area manager for BHF and when setting up shops I did some sorting of donated goods. You would not believe what people put in bags. However torn or worn clean clothing is OK as most charity shops sell their rags for money. Broken hard goods should not be donated.