(Photo: Outside St Vincent de Paul’s Kingston premises)
Tasmania’s charities are again experiencing the big festive season dump of unusable preowned items that plague their operations annually.
Many of St Vincent de Paul’s 25 retail outlets statewide are overflowing with so called donations that are not fit for repurposing.
CEO Heather Kent encourages donating, but with a qualification around condition.
“Many of our volunteers are arriving at our retail stores ready to have a great day engaging with customers but spending probably about the first hour or so cleaning up the materials and of course we have to dump these, other people’s donations are soiled or damaged in the process and then all of this has to be taken as landfill.”
She has this advice for selecting items for donation.
“So we would urge people to consider would they use this themself, would they give it to a friend or relative, if it is not the case that they would then consider taking it to the tip.”
