if you take items to charity shops,an appeal

lizzypopbottle

eazybee I heard no-one wants crockery and the charity shops take it outside, smash it and bin it. A friend who volunteered in a local charity shop was asked to do the smashing. She refused and left that shop. Can anyone on here who volunteers confirm or refute that that's the policy ?

How common is smashing it, I wonder?

At a wedding we attended 3 years ago, afternoon tea was served - all on pretty, mismatched china from charity shops. Flowers on the tables were in ditto teapots.

When friends still lived there we used often to visit a seaside tea shop in Devon, where the crockery was all pretty, mismatched items. It was always very busy!

There was also a Cornish holiday cottage we stayed in, with the same. Personally I loved it.

I have sorted my charity textiles into "good" and "rags" for years. I label the "rags" bags with either a sticky label "only rags" or I write on the bag with a permanent marker. They are always perfectly happy to have a rag bag.

Happy sexagenarian
That is similar to my experience, I do want to feel I’m doing some good, but I haven’t got the time to wander all around the town trying to get rid of stuff.

Whenever we have a good clear out now, my daughter puts it on the village page, free to anyone who wants it.

The local school has taken things, and quite often grandparents wanting to have a few things at home.

It works really well, I think we have always got rid of everything she’s advertised.

Oh Izzy I ve never heard of breaking things at all, we sell loads of crockery and lots of good stuff goes on eBay
We sell it individually (one mug, one cup and saucer) or in sets small and large . of course we can’t sell if there’s the smallest of chips or crazing so they are carefully checked and these are boxed and taken away ( not sure what happens to them after that)

I m sure there is bad practice in some shops but I m also sure that’s not the normal

Suelld yes it’s very helpful when some people bring a bag in and say ‘this is rags’ and yes some people do think ahead

Yes I can refute that. I am a volunteer and never have had that situation. However some of the donations we receive are unsaleable, we are used as an easier alternative than the local council tip.
Most donations are wonderful, but believe me some are not.
Like everything in life there is good and bad.
I try to think of the good even when pulling soiled underclothes etc from donations.
If less unsaleable rubbish was dumped onto charity shops, the genuine donators would not have the problems.
Books, records cds etc have been overtaken by technology, kindle etc, so whilst most are donated, very few people are actually buying them, even at pence each.
There is a very uplifting side to volunteering, lots of humour, companionship etc, and a genuine will to make a difference, however vilified we as volunteers are.

eazybee I heard no-one wants crockery and the charity shops take it outside, smash it and bin it. A friend who volunteered in a local charity shop was asked to do the smashing. She refused and left that shop. Can anyone on here who volunteers confirm or refute that that's the policy ?

It might be an idea to sort for them and give the charities your clothes in 2 bags - one for selling one for rubbish. Might help them a lot??

Can I also add that the last time I took clothes to the local Charity shop I had rigorously sorted out the good stuff for them and dumped the rest for the rubbish = but when I mentioned this in the shop I was told - don’t bother to sort as we sell all the rubbish to a recycling firm that comes round and gives us a few pence a bag. I had known they did this with books, but I didn’t realise it happened with clothes too. The ‘Mega’ s/h booksellers ( World of Books; Goldstone Boooks;Reuseabook and there’s) go around all the Charity shops in our area (S W Wales) and pay 50p a black bag full - then sell online with no descriptions but a cheap price and sell millions - thus putting us ‘proper’ booksellers almost out of business!! - they then use what they can like that, and recycle the rest for cash .

Can those wonderful volunteers tell me about unusable clothing. Do you use it for "shoddy" or rags for recycling. I have clothes which have had several" lives" from work -housework-gardening and are obviously only fit for rags. I don't like the idea of material going to land fill.
I have seen that some better and designer clothes are found in more upmarket areas. Worth travelling to.

Maggie and Doodle it’s a life saver for many and you know how they say hairdressers always hear the problems well we are very often ‘social workers’ too We recently hooked up (in the nicest possible way) an elderly unwell gent with a lady customer cleaner to help in his house If people are looking for a special item (an old chap was looking for some particular coloured curtains so to save him having to come looking everyday I took his phone number and gave him a ring when some came in Its a nice caring, sharing atmosphere and makes money for kids charity at the same time
Once a year we all go out for a meal from youngest 16 to eldest 80+ plenty of laughter
It’s one of my happy places

BlueBelle

We take donations all through the day up to closing time and often have in excess of 200 bags per day
The only time we have ever put the sign out was in the pandemic when so many people were clearing their houses for something to do and staff was in shortage
Please remember most small shops only have a finite area of space to store big loads of donations in or perhaps some smaller shops are struggling with people off with CoviD and other related health problems
THEY ARE NOT DOING IT TO BE AKWARD
Ring before leaving if you are worried you ll have to bring your bags back home and don’t leave it till 4 pm

We need your donations ( the bags by the roadside are a con)

Don’t stop giving, go in the morning…. but it’s nothing to do with workers it’s storage space Where do you put 200 over filled black bags ?

Thank you for explaining.

People are quick to judge without finding out the facts first....

My mum enjoyed working in her charity shop too, BlueBelle. She described it as similar to yours, with regular customers and a good mix of staff. She was disappointed when it closed.

In our little market town, the charity shops we have are two Age UK, ( a local and a national), Red Cross, a local Hospice, Sue Ryder, and another childrens charity one.

They all keep going, and nearly always have a customer or two in.

They all seem to accept clothes, books, toys, jigsaws, bric a brac. Not furniture, as none of them are very big.

I take in far more than I buy, but I recently bought a little navy fine knit cardigan, looked brand new, and a couple of check shirts for DH to garden in, also very new looking.

Your shop sounds lovely , BlueBelle.

Can I just say that not all the bags posted through doors are scams. Age UK does a collection every so often round here and all the profits go to the charity.

As someone said though, there’s always the risk of someone else picking them up, or them not turning up when they should and things getting wet (as happened with us when we cleared DMIL’s house). Some charities will collect locally though by arrangement if you have a lot of donations.

Baby items seem to be a problem. We’d a lovely wooden rocking crib, bought by me in the first flush of “I’m going to be a grandma!”. Used twice. It was turned down even by the local shop that specialises in furniture (no baby items). An appreciative PDSA took it and it sold within the hour.

No not mine either Merylstreep but it sounds as if some people on here have those sort of shops How they can turn away just about everything as one poster describe a man at a warehouse doing, beggars belief
Roxy I ve volunteered in my charity shop since a year after I retired nearly 8 years now We have such a lovely mix of old and young volunteers who work hard we have a couple of autistic youngsters who are brilliant at the jobs they do and we all get on so well a lovely boss and I enjoy every minute of my work there I do about 20 hours a week and would do more if life didn’t get in my way sometimes it’s mucky or heavy work but we can wash ourselves we get coffee and biscuits and a lot of lovely customers (a sprinkling of thieves like happens in all walks of life) but on the whole they are nice people who love a chat and a bargain

BlueBelle
Sniffy nosed boutiques that’s certainly not ours ?
Some of our regulars pop in for a cuppa.
Can you imagine The Heart Foundation doing that?

I have never encountered a charity shop, that had rules about when you could come and drop things off, or that made you feel they were doing you a favour accepting things.

Here (Denmark) the only stipulation is to ask you not to leave bags outside the shops after closing time, as doing so usually means they have been upended and sorted through by people who were just curious.

Here the Salvation Army, Blue Cross, Red Cross, UNICEF all have collection bins either near their shops or in shopping malls so you can leave donations at any time you like.

The same system prevails in Germany where apart from the above the Knights of St John of Jerusalem and Malta, Caritas, the Sisters of St Vincent de Paul and various other orders collect used clothes and shoes. They only beg you to tie shoes together in pairs, as otherwise they have to hunt through a ton or so of clothes to find a whole pair of shoes.

Yes we do make money from rags so everything is useful for us We add roughly £100 a week by selling our bags of rags

It does appear to be very much depending on area thankfully we have an area that still uses the charity shops as they were designed to be used and not sniffy nosed boutiques

MaggieMaybe I would be happy to give them to charity except that none of the charity shops near me want them - apparently it adds a lot to the work of the staff if they have to sort the wheat from the chaff. It's possible that this is because they are short of staff, or, as someone else said on an earlier thread, they used to get landed with so much dirty, unwearable stuff that they got swamped.

It looks like it is very dependent on area and/or charity.

In February this year we sorted out some items to donate to a local hospice charity - clean good quality clothes (some never worn), paperback books, toys, jigsaws, and baby equipment - one item just a few months old and only used once. The charity has a very big warehouse in our main town and as we passed one day it was nearly empty so the following day we took along our stuff. As we reached the door a man stepped out with a piece of paper in his hand and said "We don't want: clothes, books, electrical goods, toys, baby stuff, prams etc, furniture, vases, ornaments....." etc, etc, the list went on and on! When he got to the end I asked "So what do you accept?" "Anything not on this list, no old tat, we have to sort it" he said. He didn't even know what we had brought it was still in the boot. My husband said "No wonder your warehouse is nearly empty then!" We walked away.

I have since sold nearly all the baby equipment privately for more than I paid for it, also two MoB wedding outfits complete with hats, shoes and bags, and some of the toys and books. We always intended the charity to benefit from them so I've put the money aside from the sales to give to them, I think it's already a lot more than they would have got for them in their shop.

But it is disappointing and frustrating to be turned away. Most people are just trying to do the right thing, reduce what goes into landfill and perhaps do someone else a good turn in the process.

There's a huge Cancer Research place near our local Tesco Extra, so that's where most stuff goes. I'm signed up for Gift Aid, there and the local Red Cross shop.

I never put out those road side bags, they are a con.

AreWeThereYet

^These have now been replaced by clothing banks, so where do all the damaged textiles go? Currently into the black bin.^

Is ours the only area where textiles are collected by the council? Anything in good condition I take to charity shops but the rest I put out in a bag for collection when the bins are emptied. The council then sells on the textiles. We can do the same with small electrical items, so don't have to visit the tip so often.

Our recycling team takes old textiles and shoes, but a friend who works in a charity shop has persuaded me to give any “rags” to the shop, as they get quite a good price for them.

Yes, I usually drop items off before 10am, but more recently have had different charity bags dropped through our letterbox and have at times put my items in these - but only charities that I know of such as cancer uk, breast cancer and other ones, and also at our tesco car park are 2 massive metal containers for the salavation army so drop into that one thinking they also need our help as so many do a this time.

There are six charity shops in our small town and three of them are close to the same car park. They have never refused to take books and I know they do take toys as my neighbour's little girl was proudly showing me a doll they bought yesterday. In addition, there are charity bins in car parks and the Fire Service now has a clothing bin outside their station. I have masses to donate as I'm de-cluttering before moving to a retirement apartment.