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It's a common sight in most towns and cities in Australia — charity bins overflowing with clothes, shoes and used goods as people take on the Christmas and new year clean-up.
Key points:
- More than 80,000 tonnes of unusable donations are dumped at charity bins across Australia each year
- Illegal dumping peaks during holiday clean-outs at times like Christmas and new year
- The quality of the donations is important — if you wouldn't give it to a mate, don't donate it
People dumping illegal or unusable donations is a widespread problem faced by charities at this time every year and new figures out today show just how much dodgy or thoughtless dumping is costing charities.
The data released today by national advocacy body the National Association of Charitable Recycling Organisations (NARCO) showed people dumping illegally or donating unusable items was costing Australian charities such as Lifeline, St Vincent de Paul, Red Cross and the Endeavour Foundation more than $18 million a year.
NARCO vice-president Terry O'Neill said more than 80,000 tonnes of unusable donations were dumped at charity bins across Australia each year, peaking during holiday clean-outs at times like Christmas and new year.
"The problem is worse than we thought," Mr O'Neill said.
"This is the most important time of the year for us — it's a really busy time — but it's a time we end up with a lot of goods that can't be used and goods dumped outside charity bins that aren't usable, which means it ends up in landfill.
"We have charities that save lives, who look after people with disabilities and people who are homeless, so every single item that goes to landfill is a dollar not spent on a charity's mission."
Those in New South Wales are the worst offenders, with more than 32,000 tonnes of their donations going to the tip, followed by Queensland, where more than 18,000 tonnes ends up in landfill and Victoria, which sends more 15,000 tonnes of donations to the dump.
The Endeavour Foundation has removed donation bins at some sites because of illegal dumping.
Is your Christmas clean-out helping or hurting charities?
Mr O'Neill said while the problem needed to be highlighted, he did not want to deter people from donating.
"Generally, I think people have good hearts," he said.
"We need your donations, we really do — it's the quality of the donations that's the important thing — if you wouldn't give it to a mate, don't donate it to us."
Endeavour Foundation retail area manager Karen O'Donnel said it had actually removed all of its donation bins throughout Queensland due to the problem of people dumping rubbish, such as food waste, and a large volume of unsaleable goods.
"We then have the cost of disposal through council waste stations," she said.
She said the organisation's stores accepted donations when they were open, but asked people to think about the quality of goods they donated.
"Dumping goods on the doorstep is illegal and creates a headache for our volunteers to clear away soiled goods before opening, along with the cost of disposing damaged items we cannot sell," she said.
"We now have a pick-up service for larger quality donations, through our Capalaba and Stafford stores in Brisbane."
Topics: charities-and-community-organisations, community-and-society, charities, human-interest, people, government-and-politics, activism-and-lobbying, recycling-and-waste-management, environment, brisbane-4000, qld, australia
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