Charity shops

I'm doing the Lent De-clutter, which I try to do every year. 1 thing Day 1 up to 40 things on Maundy Thursday. Gets rid of over 700 things. So I go to donate to one of the many Charity Shops around here, if one isn't accepting donations I find another (usually just down the road ). I always just walk in drop off bags then walk out as I'm getting rid of "stuff" and don't want to be tempted by someone else's de-clutter donation! My definition of clutter is anything from a used envelope to an armchair so it's fairly easy to reach my target.

I try to limit my donations to clothes I would be happy to find if I was going through their rails. I took several garments in this week, had a quick look round, and found a nice Seasalt dress for £9. So the shop got something to sell and made a sale,

I have been having the same issue. My preferred charity is not taking donations of ladies clothes or books - of which I have many and in very good condition!

They have recently revamped their shop. There is one smallish rail for women's clothes. The centre of the shop is a vast empty space. The small bookcase they had was full of tatty old books.

Other local charity shops have several rails in the middle space in the shop and new looking books.

My preferred charity also have an out of town unit where you can donate. It is not accessible at all other than by car.

It frustrates me so much that they are so inept. Why don't they have more rails of clothes in the shop and bigger bookcases. There is no point having donation unit full of stuff if they don't make more space for stuff in their shops. One of the helpers at the donation centre agreed with me and said that she had commented on this to the manager, to no avail

Totally agree. I have had friends who had torn out clothes and they were like I will take it to charity shop. I was like WTF. I feel charity shop has bigger pressure than normal shops as they need to sort out the donation, price it and get all the banter from teh people because they think it's charity shop so it should be free

Tizliz

It is difficult knowing what to take to charity shops. I feel that if I don’t want to wear it anymore then no-one else will want to because I wear clothes until they are bobbly/out of shape/faded. The only clothes I donate are new items that I change my mind about and it is too late or too difficult to return - that has been twice this year and one item had been lurking in the back of the wardrobe for 20 years 😳

Why do some people think charity shops are dumping grounds, surely the rubbish bin is nearer?

One of our charity shops will take old clothes unfit to put out on the rails as long as they are clearly labelled for the ragman.
They receive money by the weight, I think.

I always prefer to directly give items to charity — it saves me the headache of selling them online. I’ve moved quite a bit around the UK for work and always find donating to Cancer Research UK or the Salvation Army more satisfying, simply because I relate to their causes more.

Most of the time, I check the nearest open charity shops (pro tip below on how to discover them) and walk in first without the items to understand their donation policy. It's a chaos sometimes for charity because of fast fashion.

I find these two places very helpful for up-to-date charity shop information:

charityretail.org.uk/find-a-shop

www.ganddee.com/charityshopsfinder

Do people not do jumble sales any more? Maybe it’s time to restart them? I know our play group used to raise money from them.

It is difficult knowing what to take to charity shops. I feel that if I don’t want to wear it anymore then no-one else will want to because I wear clothes until they are bobbly/out of shape/faded. The only clothes I donate are new items that I change my mind about and it is too late or too difficult to return - that has been twice this year and one item had been lurking in the back of the wardrobe for 20 years 😳

Why do some people think charity shops are dumping grounds, surely the rubbish bin is nearer?

As you know BlueBelle I too work in a charity shop ( 10 years)
The general public have no idea what some people donate 😡
Then there’s the kitchen ware still coated in food 😡

I ve worked in this shop since I retired at 69 so 11 years I absolutely love it but I hope none of you have the bag I had some weeks ago there were some kids clothes on the top then going a bit deeper I found a completely full nappy and a pizza box with a half eaten pizza in it !!

I've never had issues donating to my local charity shop personally, but I have friends who regularly volunteer and according to them, the main issue is the space in the shop when it comes to collecting donations. If the shop has too many donation bags, this can cause a fire hazard which is why they have to turn donations away when they are at capacity... This is a shame, but it's hard for charity shops to plan donation streams.. I think some charities are starting to work on this issue though. A friend working at a charity shop recently told me about an app called Ganddee that allows charity shops to inform users "in real time" whether or not they are currently accepting donations. I have yet to use it, but that looks like a promising way to solve the donation issue for charity shops.

My local paper in France carried a picture last week of a
mountain of donated clothing at the Emmaus depot. Its
a problem here as well.

I’m another volunteer in a charity shop and we’re inundated with donations as we take most things except dvds and videos. Our back room is chock full of bags and boxes often piled on top of each other . Health and safety would have a field day !!! . We never turn people away as they won’t return . Our shop has easy and free parking , so it’s popular and it’s a local charity not a big national one .
I’ve been volunteering for 2 years now and it’s an eye opener. The amount of items which are ripped , broken, dirty , well worn is staggering. Charity shops can only sell saleable items , unsaleable clothes go to rag, ditto shoes and bags . I’ve had to rag lovely high end high street clothes due to makeup or fake tan stains .
The rest goes in our bins .
Some people use us as a rubbish tip. We get black bags full of the entire contents of someone’s bathroom cupboards or kitchen drawers . Last week I found a used toilet brush and packets of prescription drugs .
If donors sorted their stuff into what’s saleable, then some charity shops wouldn’t need to stop taking donations.

I also volunteer at a charity shop and can relate to everything BlueBelle and Petra have said. If the donations are not saleable they go to ‘rag’ and are recycled abroad. If they are broken, dirty or just not good enough for ‘rag’, they are put out with the rubbish, with the charity being charged for the rubbish bags and removal.

Absolutely my experience too BlueBelle. I would also love to be able to say that all of the many, many bags of donations are chock full of items that we’d be happy to put out for sale. Unfortunately though, sometimes we are used as a dumping ground for people’s house clearances. Our bins are always full and we just can’t cope with the amount of stuff we are given.

The pleasure we get from opening up a bag of good quality, saleable items is immense. Please don’t be deterred from donating even if you have to wait a little longer.

It obviously depends on the area you live in. I volunteer in our Save the Children shop and we never turn away donations, we have lots, but not more than we can cope with. Same with other charity shops in the village. Do you have a homeless centre or Salvation Army shop? Maybe they would accept donations?

I drove to our local Red Cross shop the other day. It is the only one locally which takes electrical goods. I had a barely used soup maker and a pile of nearly new cookery books. I was met at the door by one of the assistants who asked what I had before I could step through the door. Fortunately she was happy with my offerings.

We also have volunteers who collect for the homeless in our area.

The type of things they ask for, at this time of year, are warm jackets and coats, jeans, joggers, socks, trainers, hats, gloves, scarves, toiletries, chocolate.

On our community page, often see pictures of van loads of stuff being sent out.

I frequently donate to:

anglodoorstepcollections.co.uk/

They collect from your address and they support a few charities from which you can choose.

Calendargirl

^It’s nearly Christmas everyone is clearing out to make room for the new stuff they will buy^

Or be given.

BlueBelle is spot on, obviously first hand knowledge with working there.

It says it all though. And after Christmas, folk will be bringing in unwanted presents, Christmas jigsaws, toys, toiletries, clothes, books, …..just more stuff that shouldn’t have been bought in the first place.

All so pointless.

This is true. I volunteered in a charity shop for 15 years. Every year just after Xmas we received all the unwanted Xmas gifts - slippers, nighties, books,DVDs, perfumes, diaries and calendars, ornaments etc.

One year a woman came in with a big laundry bag full of wrapped Xmas gifts to donate. I asked her why she didn’t unwrap them and she said every year she gets “rubbish” that she doesn’t want or need and she just can’t be bothered. Takes all sorts I guess.

There is a link on the Oxfam website which enables you to order a bag from them for free. You can then fill it with up to 10kg of items (any sort), take it to your nearest DPD collection point (there are lots) and it will be taken to Oxfam for free.
Also clothes in any condition can be dropped off in Salvation Army collection bins - they have an amazing hi-tech depot which can sort them into different categories and distribute as appropriate. These are not my favourite charities but useful if you have stuff to get rid of and are unable to take it elsewhere

Thanks for all your replies. Bluebelle I certainly wasn't judging the good folk like you who work on charity shops. I just feel a little sad that my good intentions came to nothing. I like the idea of selling on Vinted and donating any money I raise.

*hand

I am in awe of people who work in Charity shops. I ran the 2nd had uniform shop at my children's school and we got some awful 'bags'.

We donate to Headway quite regularly (they were brilliant with DS1) and we have only been turned away once.

When I felt ready to do so I gave my husbands clothing seasonally to charity shops. His coats I gave autumn time and his shorts and many T-shirts were given late spring.