Nationally, charity shops waste around £4.5 million each year dealing with unsuitable donations, including books with missing chapters and single shoes.
Oxfam spends £500,000 each year on the sorting, storing and disposing of unsuitable donations, almost as much as the charity’s entire 2005 project spend in Rwanda or Eritrea.
They say possible landfill tax increases and proposed laws for the disposal of electrical goods could soon push this figure up to £1m.
This week the charity appealed to donors to be selective, launching an initiative called ‘Sorted’ which encourages the public to think twice about what they give to charity shops.
Ed Le Quesne from Oxfam Jersey said: ‘People have car boot sales and don’t sell everything, so simply dump their leftovers on our doorstep.
We get a lot of dirty and stained clothes and broken goods.
Locally, it’s not a huge financial cost, but it uses up a lot of our volunteers’ time as they have to sort it all out and will often take clothes home so they can wash them.
We just ask people to sort things out and then wash them before giving them to us.’ Dianne Ranson, joint manager of the Jersey Hospice Shop, said: ‘Unsuitable donations are very much a problem for us.
We get lots of damaged and dirty clothes and stains and broken zips are very common.
We receive lots of shirts and jackets with really brown collars, loads of grotty old shoes, toys with pieces missing and electrical goods which don’t work.
Probably the worst things we get though are old underwear and socks.’
