Charities face huge bills to dump ‘rubbish’ donations

She wonders whether some of it is driven by laziness and people not wanting to pay to get rid of things they are no longer using.

“We’ve tried to emphasise to our customers that proceeds are going on rubbish fees instead of support for people in need.

“It’s frustrating and really disappointing when we don’t get to help people who really need it.”

Sometimes, she said, it could be that people felt guilty about throwing things out and were more comfortable donating them.

“It takes a bit to change our mindsets to throw things out that we think people could still clean and reuse. However, people mostly don’t buy the stained or unclean items and charities are left with them to dump. I just tell people clean them up first or dump them! We’re simply not going to be able to sell them.”

SPCA general manager of retail Cathy Crichton said getting rid of donations that could not be sold was a cost for her shops, too.

So far this year, the bill for wastage, including dump fees and recycling, is $250,000.

She said shops tended to be inundated with donations over the summer holidays when people were home, and through other school holidays. For times when shops could not cope, donations could be taken to storage sites and a distribution centre.

She said people making donations needed to consider whether the item was sellable, and in the case of electronics, safe.

“There’s an onus on the person who’s donating the product to consider those pieces as a social responsibility before passing it on… we would like to think the public considers that they might be shifting a problem.”

She said wastage was one of the biggest cost to charities.

“It’s quite a sizable cost and all of us community-wide, you know, want to reduce landfill and wastage.

“I would say it would be great if that social responsibility is considered by all parties.”

Crichton said the country needed local and central government support to develop a fabric recycling resource in New Zealand.

“As a nation, that’s probably one of our biggest opportunities. To take responsibility and find solutions within our own country. I would suggest there are people out there that are exporting fabric waste.”

Fashion commentator Saffron Kingan said people often thought of donating as a sort of cheat, a good thing they were doing when most of the time they were just passing on the problem.

“Certainly on a global scale this is very true with second-hand clothing exports. Most people “donate” clothing that they would not pass along to friends, nor buy themselves, but it’s guilt-free disposal when it’s to an op shop!

“Donating should be one of the last options for getting rid of stuff, and it frequently feeds into the idea that clothing is a circular economy, when very few are repairing or repurposing, and lots of clothing isn’t fit for the next person due to initial poor quality

“This also stems from the idea that clothing should be cheap - I often hear that op shops have tops the same price that they are new at like Kmart, which is an issue because clothing shouldn’t be that cheap. It’s not going to encourage looking after things or buying second-hand when that’s the case.”

A spokesperson for the Salvation Army said it was grateful for all the donations it received.

“Sometimes we receive items that we cannot sell due to a number of different reasons, which is part of the business of gratefully receiving people’s used items. Disposal costs are a very small percentage of our overall business and the money raised from goods sold in our store has helped save over 12 million items from going to landfill.”

Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.