Broken donations not helpful: Salvos

Volunteer staff at Albany’s Salvation Army Community Store are frustrated at having to clear a deluge of trash left at their doorstep on a daily basis.

Piles of unusable donations were left at the Chester Pass Road shop over the Labour Day long weekend.

Staff members toiled for three hours this week to clear the unusable items, making two tip-runs.

Salvation Army Community Store manager Graham Henderson said while the organisation was grateful the community were donating items, only about 10 per cent of the weekend’s donations were useful.

“While we greatly appreciate the donations of usable items, the dumping of rubbish is becoming a real problem to us in terms of cost and extra effort required from our volunteers,” he said.

“There are still really nice people out there who are still donating nice things to us, but we want to get the message across that broken, torn items are of no use.”

Mr Henderson said volunteers were taking at least one truckload of unusable items to the tip a day, sometimes three loads, equating to 12 tonnes a month.

“Not only does this incur a significant cost to us, it is money that could have been spent on assisting local families in need,” he said.

“There’s a cost to go to the tip, that’s probably one of the reasons they are dropping it off to us.”

St Vincent de Paul Shop Albany acting manager Noeleen Tulip said they had a similar problem in the past, but it had reduced since moving to a Lockyer Avenue location.

The Salvation Army store is locally operated and all proceeds from the shop go back to helping needy community members.

Mr Henderson said torn, dirty or stained clothing, electrical items, damaged furniture and mattresses were of no use, but he welcomed clean, undamaged items and encouraged business hours drop-offs.