Does Goodwill Repair Donated Items

A broken true cat-scratching mail poses a problem for Goodwill donation bellboy Antonio Semiglia in Westbrook, Maine. Heather Steeves hide explanation

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Heather Steeves

Cars brainstorm lining upward exterior the Goodwill donation center in Seabrook, Due north.H., around 10 a.m. virtually mornings.

Well-intended patrons are here with truckloads full of treasures.

"Nosotros hope everyone brings groovy things that help our programs, just we know some people make some questionable judgments about what is skillful to donate," explains Heather Steeves, spokesperson for the thirty Goodwill locations in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

She holds upwards "a lampshade, which is stained and disgusting and literally falling apart."

In that location's a small table missing a leg, cracked purple nutrient-storage containers and a used sponge. They're just a representative sample of the useless stuff dropped off the day earlier.

Broken glass is amid items people donate to Goodwill. Heather Steeves hide caption

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Heather Steeves

Cleaved drinking glass is amidst items people donate to Goodwill.

Heather Steeves

Along with simply existence gross, these items price Goodwill money.

"All this trash adds up to more than $one 1000000 a year in a trash bill, and it's been growing every yr for the past five years," says Steeves. And that's just for the 30 stores she oversees.

Goodwill does recycle lots of what it can't sell. The nonprofit reuses textiles and refurbishes some cleaved electronics. Just last year, information technology threw away more than 13 million pounds of waste — technically other people's garbage — across its locations in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Ane cause of this growing trash trouble is a miracle called wish-cycling, "where people are hoping that something is recyclable and therefore they put information technology in with their recycling," explains Reagan Bissonnette, executive manager of the Northeast Resources Recovery Association, a recycling group.

Americans have been trained not to throw annihilation away merely oasis't been schooled in how to get rid of items properly. But resellers like Goodwill don't want to accept likewise hard a line.

"Nobody wants to discourage the donations," says Cindy Isenhour, a professor in the Climatic change Institute at the University of Maine, where she studies the reuse economic system. "So I think everybody feels like they are walking a very fine line here."

So, Goodwill is doing a chip of a media tour, asking people to be more careful. Information technology'south timing is strategic.

"Spring cleaning is always very busy. The but busier fourth dimension we have is when Marie Kondo comes out with a new TV show," says Steeves.

In the donation line outside the Seabrook location, Ron Davitt pulls up in an SUV crammed with donations.

"All of information technology is in pretty good shape. Actually, as I look at this," he says, pointing to a plastic storage unit, "there is no drawer. I'll probably go along that and throw it away."

Simply Davitt also has clothes in skillful condition, as well as a few dog costumes. He holds up a brownish number with yellowish and red trim.

"This is for our dachshund, who is in the auto: hot dog."

Meet, this is not trash.

"Oh, yeah, that dog costume volition go within one infinitesimal of being on the sales floor," says Steeves.

She adds that the fundamental question to ask before dropping something off is: If you needed it, would you purchase it in this condition?

"We have seen comments on our Facebook page recently that are similar, 'If you lot wouldn't give it to your judgmental mother-in-law, don't donate information technology.' "