broken furniture. flashlights with batteries that leak. disfigured barbie dolls.
Across the country, thrift stores have been inundated with household items, the bargains of people who have been homebound for months and are eager to part with some of their possessions.
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The problem is that too many such articles could be accurately described as junk. Many of the donations are defective or worn items: gifts from well-intentioned people who want to reduce waste but donate items that simply shouldn’t be donated.
Thrift stores, wary of discouraging donations, say they, as always, accept most contributions, especially after a recession that hit lower-income Americans hardest, many of whom now depend of them. and they point out that most of the items that arrive at their stores are still perfectly acceptable.
but in the midst of spring cleaning season, stores want to curb a barrage of unwanted contributions that have surged during the covid-19 pandemic.
“I’m careful not to point fingers at donors because without them we wouldn’t have a business model,” said megan fink, marketing executive at palmetto goodwill, which operates 31 stores in south carolina. “but we are trying to educate.”
For thrift stores, these donations aren’t just a hassle to dispose of. they also magnify your garbage disposal costs. stores need time and staff hours to process them.
“It actually ends up costing goodwill instead of helping them,” said David Courard-Hauri, a professor of environmental science and sustainability at Drake University.
Spikes in garbage spending can divert money from other services that agencies could spend in their communities, like workforce development programs.
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in wisconsin and illinois, stores reported an influx of flammable and dangerous donations, including lead acid batteries. Those items increase store costs because they must be disposed of by a disposal company in an environmentally friendly manner, said Julie Deming, director of merchandising for Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin, which operates 100 Goodwill stores in southeast Wisconsin. Wisconsin and Chicago. metropolitan area.
“We’ve gotten all kinds of donations from people who clean their house,” Deming said. “I think it’s important to educate donors that we can’t repair items.”
informing donors of this fact will not necessarily solve the problem. savings workers point out that many donors already know what kinds of items they should avoid contributing, but throw their trash in stores anyway just to get rid of it.
“If we don’t have a drink and they know we don’t have a drink, they don’t come when we’re open,” said Rolf Halverson, director of operations for Goodwill Industries of Houston, which has 61 retail stores. stores in texas “They come at 10:00 p.m. or in the middle of the night or run behind the store and leave a broken sofa. and that adds weight to our garbage. so they put the account on us instead of them.”
The increase, workers say, was due in part to the temporary closure of stores during the pandemic. Donors kept handing out items while stores were closed, causing some donations, such as sofas, to become moldy after being caught in the rain, said Barbie Parker, vice president of fund development and community relations at Goodwill Houston. Other agencies, like Fink’s in Charleston, also received these types of donations when they were closed.
Some cities and towns were upset when donated items were left out of stores, so goodwill had to assign truckers to transport them, said brian itzkowitz, an official with goodwill industries international.
It is unclear whether or to what extent rising garbage costs affected the 156 independent goodwill agencies in the United States and Canada and the 12 affiliates in other countries. Goodwill Industries International, of which local independent agencies are members, does not collect data on waste spending, itzkowitz said.
But last year, such costs totaled $1.2 million for Goodwill Northern New England, which operates 30 stores in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. unusable donations became a problem for the agency even before covid-19 hit; his waste collection expenses have skyrocketed 155% in the last five years, he estimates.
“What we’re seeing anecdotally is that it’s a younger generation of donors,” said heather steeves, agency communication manager. “Our grandmothers knew what to donate to goodwill. and the things our grandmothers bought lasted much longer. it was built better; it was built with a second life designed into it.”
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“In the world now, we’re seeing a lot more single-use items,” he said. “At the same time, we have millennials, like me, who don’t want to throw things away. we want to act in the most sustainable way possible. so there’s this optimism of, ‘I’m sure someone wants this old spaghetti jar to become a vase,’ but the truth is that they don’t. some things are recyclable or trash and should not be taken to goodwill.”
In fact, experts say the recent spike in trash costs for these stores is part of a broader trend that resellers, including thrift stores, have been watching for perhaps 15 years.
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“We just have a lot of stuff in our homes and our storage units that are full of stuff that just doesn’t last very long,” said Cynthia Isenhour, a professor of anthropology and climate change who has been researching Maine’s reuse economy. during years. “so it breaks and people don’t know what to do with it. much of it is not repairable due to the low quality of the materials.”
The pandemic-induced increase in litter goes beyond goodwill. Other stores, such as Farmton Thrift Store in Farmton, Maine, say they have also seen an increase in trash donations during the pandemic.
dale bannon, national community relations & The Salvation Army’s development secretary declined to say whether his stores have faced rising garbage costs. But he said in a statement that it was “important for people to check their individual thrift store needs.”
Most Salvation Army locations, Bannon said, “need high-quality, new and gently used items.”
As for goodwill, workers say donors should check their local agency’s website to make sure a particular item is an acceptable donation.
steeves of northern new england goodwill has some simple advice for anyone interested in donating items to a thrift store:
“If you wouldn’t give it to your sensible mother-in-law,” he said, “then don’t donate it.”
The Associated Press is supported by the Lilly Endowment for coverage of philanthropy and nonprofit organizations. the app is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s philanthropic coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
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