Charity shops and recyclables

[TheOstrich]

A rant!

We're pruning furniture, and we have for disposal a large office table / workstation, wood veneer on a metal frame, sturdy, eminently serviceable and reusable. But it has been rejected on inspection by the local hospice because there are three small pock-mark blemishes on the veneer top. "It's not resaleable like that", we were told, "we won't take it". So I phoned an inner city furniture project who also do collections, explained what it was and said "in fairness, the local hospice has rejected it". "Well we won't take it either", they said.

For goodness sake! I'm darn sure the hospice could easily have got something for it, and the inner city project must have loads of poor families who would welcome a table. What is it with these people?

Now it will go down the tip, and I'll have to pay £25 to have the council collect it.

[Kaz]

Ossie we had exactly the same issue with our old dining table and chairs, before we moved here. It was a lovely pine one with matching padded chairs and only about 5 or 6 years old. They were in great nick, apart from some tiny puppy-sized chew marks on the bottom of the legs of the table, from when Pepper was tiny. They were barely noticeable but the charities didn't want to know!

I put it on Freecycle, and it went the first day, in fact I could have shifted it several times over. The young couple who took it were over the moon with it!

[Rodo]

We had to stand and watch a perfectly sound three piece suite being chewed up by the giant crusher because nobody would take it as the fire certificate still hanging on the back had faded. It does make you wonder doesn't it.

[Kaz]

It's a shocking waste Rodo, especially when so many families are struggling. When I was a young mum, on my own with Chris in a council flat, starting again from scratch after a split, I would have been so grateful for a suite like that, and for the dining table and chairs I got rid of

[TheOstrich]

I'm glad you good folk think the same - yes, we feel that it's a shocking waste too.

I've just booked the Council for Monday, and as they will take up to 6 items in a collection, we've added a second table (same design / size) and a rather decrepit swivel chair to get our money's worth!

[Gal]

Ossie can you not Freecycle it? Or pop it on to Gumtree?

[Workingman]

The couple below tried to give away their hardwood cot with brass fittings and a safety gate for door/stairs - no MDF or chipboard there.

They did not get one enquiry from adverts in shop or Gumtree.

You would think that some young couple would have at least asked given the price of these things.

[saundra]

They only want new now we used to hand stuff round in the 60s70s
It was all fibreglass curtains and melamine
And fablon those were the days

[manxie]

Our government has set up recycle centers outside all the main towns on the island and all the public can take stuff there if in fair nick it goes in a big shed for others to collect and if iffy then into the assorted skips, ie burnable, metal, garden waste, wood, plasterboard, etc and the government then puts all it can throught the incinerator and the remainder like metals goes to scrap dealers, garden waste is shredded and turned into compost locally, hardcore and inert waste is used for infill then the remainder goes to the landfill tip.
All proceeds from the sale of metals ,copper wire etc goes back to government to subsidise the recycle centers expenses.
Our recycle center on average recycles 40 tons of "waste" every month, and an unknown amount gets "recycled" by the many who just go to see what is going begging..............ALL FREE.
The only items you have to pay to dispose of here are fridges £8 small £12 large and tvs £8 each.

Manxie xx

[Aggers]

When we down-sized, four years ago, we had the same problem in trying to give away
some of our surplus furniture to charity shops, most of which was in pristine condition.
I finished up having to break/chop/saw up some pieces to dump on the local tip.