Donations to charity shops

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

Narrowboatnan
The ‘stuff’ that goes in the big bins is generally shredded shredded and recycled for carpet underlay, mattresses etc.
Back in the days of yore ? massive amounts of this clothing was bought by countries all around the world and sold on.
I myself found some M&S clothes when I lived in Bulgaria.
There is a backlash to this, though. Our castoffs are decimating the clothing industry in poorer countries.
But that’s another story ?

Some of these comments reminded me that one of our local charity shops won't accept any Primark clothes as they don't want 'cheap' clothes that will only sell for a few pounds.

I have resorted to putting clothes etc in the bags which are collected from your door. I don't like doing this because I know the amount of money reaching the charities is pitifully small, but I am tired of lugging heavy bags of good quality stuff to charity shops, no nearby parking, only to have it refused because they have so much to sort. Are the clothing banks unsealed now? At least you can park nearby.
Whatever happened to jumble sales?

songstress60

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.

Where I live , the council tip was closed for a while last year and then reopened but you had to book a slot to be able to use it.
I now prefer that system as I have never had to wait in a queue of vehicles to use the top as I did before the booking system. I'm unhappy that the council has gone back to people just turning up and having to wait to get access to the tip. For me it worked much better having a booking system in place.

Oh it doesn’t worry us what we sort through you take the rough with the smooth Occasionally you get a washed folded bag but the majority of the time it’s a drawer tipped into a black bag, knickers and all But we re allowed to wash our hands ???
and yes there’s often all sorts in with the clothes
The best one happened to me when I was personally
collecting a. Few years ago for the Syrian refugees, walking through Europe in the middle of winter I got bags with swimming costumes, high heels and the best one of all from a church school a beautiful pink Basque

A friend of mine used to sort in a local charity shop - one day they found what they thought to be a vase - turned out to be an urn - complete with ashes!

I used to work as a cashier in a bank so, of course, I was put on the till at the charity shop.

One day there was a shout from the back for me to stay away. A retired nurse who knew I have asthma was opening bags and there were bags of mouldy clothes.

The smell was awful so I presume they were all quickly dumped in the bin outside.

A woman working in a small local charity shop was nearly in tears when I popped in to see what goodies she had. It was very difficult to get indoors because some idiot had tipped half a lorry load of bags, taking up pavement space and being a general nuisance. I think I would have rung the council to see if they could remove the debris because the charity had to pay to dump it in their commercial bin which was nearly full anyway. People do not care.

My nearest charity has a large room specifically for books. The books I take have been read once so are in immaculate condition. They throw out any less than pristine books and make a fair bit of money there.

Just wondering if people have stopped reading these days because many of our op shops won't accept books because they have too many. A big bag of books goes for about $5- and some of the books look new and unused. Lovely cookery books included- I guess Mr. Google has taken over for recipes.

Excellent idea!