{"id":410839,"date":"2026-01-13T21:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/410839\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T21:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:27:11","slug":"charity-shops-call-for-quality-donations-in-post-christmas-donation-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/410839\/","title":{"rendered":"Charity shops call for quality donations in post-Christmas donation surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

One person’s trash is often another’s treasure, and with the holiday period wrapping up, op shops are being inundated with donations from annual wardrobe purges and unwanted Christmas gifts.<\/p>\n

But not all donations end up on the racks.<\/p>\n

Charities have issued a plea for people to be mindful of what they are donating, with staff saying many donated items are unusable.<\/p>\n

“[We don’t take] baby trolleys, helmets, baby seats for the car, microwaves and electronics,” South West area manager for St Vincent de Paul Society Ari Jadi said.<\/p>\n

“Most of them we don’t accept because we have to re-tag it before we are able to resell it \u2014 it’s a health and safety issue.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ari Jadi loads an unwanted oil heater into a skip bin. Vinnies does not take electrical items. (ABC Riverina: Andrew Mangelsdorf)<\/p>\n

Mr Jadi said people often just dumped rubbish, or they left good donations outside full bins in the elements.<\/p>\n

“During this period of time, it’s a lot, especially in Wagga. There’s general waste that gets picked up every day, and we have a really massive red bin in there, and it’s so full, sometimes they pick it up twice a day,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We cannot salvage those donations.”<\/p>\n

Every year, 310,000 tonnes of clothing items are donated to op shops.<\/p>\n

More than 43,000 tonnes of those donations are unusable and cannot be commercially recycled in Australia.<\/p>\n

They end up in landfill, according to the 2024-25 Charitable Reuse Australia Clothing Reuse Export Accreditation Scheme.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Vinnies’ rubbish bins are often overflowing with unusable items. (ABC Riverina: Andrew Mangelsdorf)<\/p>\n

While Vinnies makes use of some textiles unfit for resale to create rugs, throws, mats, towels, and door runners in its re\/CYCLE program, it is only a small portion of the number of unsellable items it receives.<\/p>\n

However, while certain objects may not be allowed in op shops, there are community groups that are filling those gaps.<\/p>\n

Community-led charities\"A<\/p>\n

Michelle Bordignon says donations to those in need should be in good condition. (ABC Riverina: Nicola Ceccato)<\/p>\n

Michelle Bordignon, a resident in the western Riverina city of Griffith, has been running the Helping Hands charity for nine years.<\/p>\n

She collects second-hand goods from the community and works with local organisations to distribute items to those in need.<\/p>\n

Mattresses, prams or microwaves \u2014 which are often not accepted by op shops \u2014 are accepted by Helping Hands.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Griffith Helping Hands receives so many donations, its shed is always packed. (Supplied: Michelle Bordignon)<\/p>\n

However, the charity was still prone to large amounts of unwanted items, sometimes left outside her home or the shed where she kept donations.<\/p>\n

“Second-hand underwear, please, we don’t want that,” Ms Bordignon said.<\/p>\n

“I get a lot of men’s work clothes that are ripped and covered in paint, and honestly, I can’t really move them on to anyone either, so anything broken, ripped, covered in animal fur all has to go in the bin.<\/p>\n

“I don’t have a very big [bin], and when that’s full, I have to go out to the tip myself.”<\/p>\n

Ms Bordignon said she had seen firsthand the impact that good-quality donations could have on people.<\/p>\n

“Beautiful donations that are in great condition, it boosts people’s lives by getting that \u2014 you don’t give rubbish to people, especially someone who’s doing it tough,” Ms Bordignon said.<\/p>\n

Overflowing donation bins\"A<\/p>\n

Ari Jadi advises against leaving donations outside the store when it is closed. (ABC Riverina: Andrew Mangelsdorf)<\/p>\n

Mr Jadi said Vinnies had to increase its bins in some areas due to the continuous donations it received, especially during the Christmas break.<\/p>\n

However, it had led people to place bags of donations outside the bins when they were overflowing, leaving them out in the weather to get ruined and rummaged through.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A donation bin sits overflowing outside Micah House in Wagga Wagga. (Supplied: St Vincent’s Wagga)<\/p>\n

Some op shops, like Wagga Wagga’s Anglicare, have found that security cameras have deterred illegal dumping or rummaging.<\/p>\n

“We started off getting security cameras a couple of years ago because we were robbed and we had some people come in and steal the volunteers’ bags,” a spokesperson for the Anglicare Op Shop in Wagga Wagga said.<\/p>\n

“From there, we got security cameras in the shop. Then we noticed that there was a switch, and people would come in and see the security cameras, and they wouldn’t dump things as well.”<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said this Christmas marked the first time they had come back from holidays to find no dumped donations at the back door.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Mr Jadi said if people were going to donate, they should follow one simple rule.<\/p>\n

“If you would give it to a mate, then it’s OK to donate to us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One person’s trash is often another’s treasure, and with the holiday period wrapping up, op shops are being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10881,217403,217402,107933,217401,217404,23273,217400,44023,141839,43,217398,95404,44,217396,217399,102349,57305,217397,41,39,42,40,180421,173677],"class_list":["post-410839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-charity","tag-charity-clothes","tag-charity-clothing","tag-charity-donation","tag-charity-donations","tag-charity-shopping","tag-donate","tag-donation-bins","tag-donations","tag-griffith","tag-headlines","tag-helping-hands","tag-landfill","tag-news","tag-op-shops","tag-opportunity-shops","tag-riverina","tag-rubbish","tag-st-vincents","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-vinnies","tag-wagga-wagga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}