Dove House Hospice forced to pay £45,000 a year disposing of donated broken items and junk
A charity that provides care for people with life-limiting illnesses in Hull has said it has to spend £45,000 a year throwing away a large number of broken or faulty items that people donate.
Unfortunately, people are leaving worthless junk at Dove House Hospice that can't be sold on, either because its dangerous, broken, or in very poor condition, BBC Look North reports. Head of retail Jennifer Rowan said, for instance, a jigsaw puzzle can only be sold if it has all the pieces and is in good condition.
She added: "It does cost us a lot of money to get rid of items that we cannot sell." She said money spent disposing of waste "wouldn't be able to go towards caring for patients in the community."
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"Obviously, if things are broken we can't sell them," she said. "From a legal point of view, anything that is upholstered without a fire label we cannot sell.
"Children's car seats, children's helmets, that's from a safety aspect, we can't resell. There are some items such as CDs, DVDs, which at the moment aren't popular in our shops.
"There's a cost implication of disposing of those because from a sustainability point of view, it's plastic and it's landfill." Jennifer told the BBC that shop sales bring in nearly half of the charity's £10m per year operating costs.
If people are in doubt about whether their donations are sellable, they should check with volunteers before leaving them there. This saves the volunteers time and the charity money - which could instead be used to help people.
Items Dove House can't accept:
Any item not of sellable quality
Any item of single use plastic
Artificial Christmas trees
Car seats
CDs or DVDs
Computer towers
Crash helmets, riding helmets, or safety pads
Electric blankets
Foot spas
Gas appliances
Kettles
Large back TVs
NHS equipment
Roller blades or skates
Skateboards
Toasters
Toys or games without a CE mark
TVS or DVD/Blu Ray players without SCART sockets or remote controls
Upholstered furniture without current fire safety labels on them
Video tapes
Video players
Nursery equipment with harnesses that don't have a five-point harness
Items containing mercury
Rowan stressed that Dove House Hospice appreciates the donations it receives but they must be of good quality. Giving the example of a Peppa Pig jigsaw puzzle, she said: "Puzzles like this, if all of the pieces are there and it's in good condition, we can sell it so that's brilliant.
"Unfortunately, if items don't work we wouldn't be able to sell them on so that would be a cost to the charity."