Goodwill has a message for everyone out there doing some spring cleaning — please stop donating your trash.
The thrift chain has been flooded with donations during the pandemic, as people have taken advantage of their time at home to purge items and clothes they no longer want or need.
And while Goodwill depends on donated items from customers, some have been sending over things that cannot be resold, such as broken furniture — which employees cannot repair — or toys with leaking batteries.
“I’m careful not to shake my finger at donors because without them, we wouldn’t have a business model,” Goodwill marketing executive Megan Fink told the Associated Press. “But we are trying to educate.”
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If a donated item is broken or unusable, it then falls on Goodwill to dispose of it, creating more work for staff and causing more harm than good.
Additionally, Goodwill has seen an increase of people donating things while stores have been closed during the pandemic. That either results in the facility being stuck with an item they don’t accept, or the item getting ruined in the elements overnight.
“If we don’t take something and they know we don’t take something, they don’t come when we’re open,” said Rolf Halverson, director of operations at Goodwill Industries of Houston. “They come in at 10:00 p.m. or in the middle of the night or run behind the store and drop off a ripped-up sofa. And that adds weight to our trash. So they put the bill on us instead of them.”
Goodwill advises donors to check their local agency’s website in advance to ensure a particular item would make an acceptable donation.
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