Knowing How and What to Donate Helps

When it comes to Recycle, Reuse and Renew almost anything goes.

Notice I said almost. 

The people who work at Canadian Diabetes Association who have to drive around and load the boxes and heavy furniture that people leave laying around at the bins tend to have to load these items by themselves. 

Remember, if it takes two of you to load the items and two people to unload the items without hurting themselves or damaging the items, chances are two people should be reloading and unloading as well, but usually only one person is loading your "donations" to keep the cost of wages down. This can damage the "donation" but more importantly it can cause accidents and injuries to those who have to work alone doing the job of two people.

An easy solution is to put smaller items in smaller boxes, do not overload bigger boxes or garbage bags and donate the furniture right to the store.

People say, "They should be grateful for the donation". 

When much of your donation needs to be hauled to the landfill by hard workers at these wonderful organizations, gratefulness is hard when they have to throw away your trash you have put into your "donation". 

These people who work for these awesome places do not deserve to sort through bags of clothing that are dirty, before donating clothing take the time to wash it. Many places do not have washers and dryers to do this job for you.

Sometimes it is easier for people to empty a toy-box into a garbage bag and "donate" it. People do not sort through and throw out the garbage toys...dolls missing arms or are "pretty" with marker makeup, those annoying fast food toys, Mr. Potato head that has no parts left except the potato part, one arm and an eye. These parts are not going to all magically appear in the bag/box you donate to the second hand places and if you cannot clean the marker off the doll, no one can.

Before you drop your donations off at a Salvation Army, the Post or Value Village think, "If I was in need would I buy this from a second hand store?" 

If you cannot see yourself doing this, chances are, no one will buy what you are donating, while one mans trash is another mans treasure, many times garbage is just garbage. 

What I mean by this is the condition of the item.

When they say "gently used" it means that there are no dents, cracks, rips or scratches in the donations, is the donation is worth buying?

Anyone who has shopped on a regular basis at these great places would know what they are always in need of or what they have too much of that is not selling. 

If you want to donate, check out these great places and ask what kinds of things they need the most or what sells the most. Talking to the managers about your larger donations makes it easier on the workers to sort and organize, they know what to expect.

One place may sell sporting goods quickly, while other stores cannot sell them at all, if a store has tons of golf clubs chances are...they are not selling all that well, donating them to that store is only going to over crowd it. 

After a garage sale, after cleaning out the children's rooms or after someone has passed away do not throw your "leftovers" into boxes and donate them unless you know they are worth donating and not going to end up in a landfill.

Splitting your donation up may help different charities and save from things being tossed into the garbage.

Some charitable organizations/stores will not sell glassware/items that have alcoholic logos on it, find out which stores will before donating these things as some will throw these out instead of selling them. 

It might be a bit more of a hassle, but in the long run it helps the charities, the environment, the needy and it can help you feel better knowing the things you have donated are being used.

The Salvation Army does amazing work for many people, there are so many programs for the less fortunate that they help with. To keep their costs down, don't make them go through your trash and take it to the dumps for you.

These people work very hard to go through the good donations that come in, it is a waste of their time and a waste of foundation funds for paying these people who have to deal with your trash.

Making a charitable organization take your garbage to the dumps because you don't have the time or the want to do it is selfish don't you think? 

In my opinion, if you are donating it because you are too cheap to take it to the landfill yourself, shame on you.