Charity shops are finding new ways to deal with waste

Only 3 in 10 donations make it to shelves, according to Business Waste management,

Most charity shops are having to find their own ways of avoiding throwing away donations.

A lot of donations for charity shops aren’t able to be put on the floor for sale.

Jo Hudson-Lambe, who volunteers at Mind UK says that most of charity shop workers job is “rifling through unsellable stuff.”

84 percent of people donate to charity shops regularly according to UK fundraising.

According to Jo, people who donate are using charity shops as a “shortcut to the dump.”

Mind try’s to mitigates waste by shifting products that weren’t sold to other Mind stores or paying for clothing to be recycled, but any “bric-a-brac” like chipped plates and bowl, which Mind “receives boxes of” has to be thrown away.

Most charity shops have to pay for peoples donations to be thrown away, which cuts into the amount going to the charity.

Jo says “We don’t want to throw stuff away because we have to pay for it”

Toni Foskett manages the Sue Rider charity shop in Winton.

Toni says: “We try and be really mindful around throwing away items.”

The Sue Rider in Winton gives any unsold goods to other charity shops in the high street that don’t get as much.

According to Toni it’s a “loose community” and most charity shops do the same as them.

Charity shops are very happy for donations, but ask people to check what they are donating before they donate.