Karen Edwards has seen some sights among the donations offered to The Koha Shop in Kaikohe.
Men’s underwear with a hole in the crotch. Stained women’s underwear. Tea towels covered what looks to be paint.
“We receive donations, sort them and provide them for a koha. Household items, clothing, anything that helps people in need and our community. It’s worked really well the last four years that we’ve operated. However, our biggest job is sorting through the amount of rubbish that comes in the donations or is dumped on us outside of hours.”
She says the shop has gone from paying rubbish dump fees for a couple of bags a week to having a skip bin emptied twice a month.
Sometimes, she said, it could be that people felt guilty about throwing things out and were more comfortable donating them.
“It takes a bit to change our mindsets to throw things out that we think people could still clean and reuse. However, people mostly don’t buy the stained or unclean items and charities are left with them to dump. I just tell people clean them up first or dump them! We’re simply not going to be able to sell them.”
Men's underwear with holes, and a paint-splattered teatowel, 'donated' to The Koha Shop in Kaikohe. Photo / Karen Edwards
SPCA general manager of retail Cathy Crichton said getting rid of donations that could not be sold was a cost for her shops, too.
So far this year, the bill for wastage, including dump fees and recycling, is $250,000.
She said shops tended to be inundated with donations over the summer holidays when people were home, and through other school holidays. For times when shops could not cope, donations could be taken to storage sites and a distribution centre.
She said people making donations needed to consider whether the item was sellable, and in the case of electronics, safe.
“There’s an onus on the person who’s donating the product to consider those pieces as a social responsibility before passing it on… we would like to think the public considers that they might be shifting a problem.”
She said wastage was one of the biggest cost to charities.
“It’s quite a sizable cost and all of us community-wide, you know, want to reduce landfill and wastage.
“I would say it would be great if that social responsibility is considered by all parties.”
Some of the soiled clothing that has been 'donated' to The Koha Shop in Kaikohe. Photo / Karen Edwards
Crichton said the country needed local and central government support to develop a fabric recycling resource in New Zealand.
“As a nation, that’s probably one of our biggest opportunities. To take responsibility and find solutions within our own country. I would suggest there are people out there that are exporting fabric waste.”
Fashion commentator Saffron Kingan said people often thought of donating as a sort of cheat, a good thing they were doing when most of the time they were just passing on the problem.
“Certainly on a global scale this is very true with second-hand clothing exports. Most people “donate” clothing that they would not pass along to friends, nor buy themselves, but it’s guilt-free disposal when it’s to an op shop!
“Donating should be one of the last options for getting rid of stuff, and it frequently feeds into the idea that clothing is a circular economy, when very few are repairing or repurposing, and lots of clothing isn’t fit for the next person due to initial poor quality
“This also stems from the idea that clothing should be cheap - I often hear that op shops have tops the same price that they are new at like Kmart, which is an issue because clothing shouldn’t be that cheap. It’s not going to encourage looking after things or buying second-hand when that’s the case.”
A spokesperson for the Salvation Army said it was grateful for all the donations it received.
“Sometimes we receive items that we cannot sell due to a number of different reasons, which is part of the business of gratefully receiving people’s used items. Disposal costs are a very small percentage of our overall business and the money raised from goods sold in our store has helped save over 12 million items from going to landfill.”
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