Oxfam tackles problem of unsaleable donated items
Howard Lake | 15 September 2005 | News
Oxfam spends £500,000 each year disposing of goods donated to its shops that can not be sold because they are broken, incomplete or of poor quality. It’s new Sorted! campaign encourages supporters to spend a few extra minutes sorting their unwanted items before they bring them in to an Oxfam shop.
Oxfam’s Sorted! campaign aims to reduce costs through asking the public to consider whether Oxfam will be able to sell items they donate, or if they should instead be directly recycled or thrown away.
Currently, Oxfam spends £500,000 each year on sorting, storing and disposing of unsuitable donations, almost as much as the charity’s entire project spend in Rwanda or Eritrea in 2005. This figure is expected to rise to £1 million because of proposed landfill tax increases and proposed legislation about disposal of electrical equipment.
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The problem of waste affects all charity shops. The Association of Charity shops estimates that £4.5 million is wasted each year by charity shops sorting, recycling and storing unsuitable donations.
Lekha Klouda, Executive Secretary of the Association of Charity Shops sai: “We ask that people use common sense in deciding whether the items are suitable to donate to charity shops or whether they should be recycled elsewhere so that charity shops do not have to pay for their disposal.”
- Oxfam’s Christmas high street sales rose by more than 40 per cent (11 January 2023)
- Donated Beatles album raises over £2,000 for BHF (22 May 2023)
- 12 high value items donated to BHF (17 September 2019)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.