A family member worked for a number of years at a smaller charity op-shop. He's got a number of stories about the crap that people donate. Numerous times he's

A family member worked for a number of years at a smaller charity op-shop. He's got a number of stories about the crap that people donate. Numerous times he's had to go out and argue with people who are dumping garbage into their 'bin' (it's actually just a donation bin integrated into the wall that is connected to their sorting room. People will "donate": - Huge numbers of cheap t-shirts and other clothing that have some company/product branding all over them. Nobody wants crap t-shirts that fall apart in one wash, particularly if they've got some obnoxious branding all over them. Certainly not 20 boxes of t-shirts with "Ask me how to get a lower interest rate on your mortgage!" and a Bank's logo on it. - Literal bags of garbage. - Bags of clothing that is/was wet with various fluids. Frequently with a huge amount of mould (because they've been shoved into a garbage bag wet, and then sealed, and left around for a few weeks before being donated). - Dirty and stained clothing - from light soiling, to very heavy staining, including fecal matter. A whole bunch of clothing from some kind of 'tough mudder' event - still covered in mud. - As per the article: Broken appliances - not just "not working" but visibly damaged and smashed up items. When the staff go out to return the items to the person dumping them, there's often an a hostile attitude that boils down to "But this is for poor people, they'll wear/use anything." and frequently followed by "Well what do you expect ME to do with it? I'm donating it to you guys - you deal with it!" After Marie Kondo's program came out - they had to lock and seal shut the donation bin door for several months, and post signage to tell people to stop dumping their crap. They still got people turning up with carloads of crap that they insisted on trying to dump. The really insistent ones carted stuff into the store, past the signage saying that they weren't taking donations, and insist that someone take their stuff. One of the worst 'regular' things is when family are cleaning up a deceased estate - they'll take all of the deceased person's clothing, possessions and so forth, bag them up and try and shove it all through the donation slot. Some of the things are worthwhile, but usually poorly packed and broken. I'd heard plenty about people insisting that certain items were real X - from jewellery to name brand things, and been shocked/offended when the staff point out that "Sorry, no, those beads there are glass, not rubies or sapphires. That gold there is just painted or plated. That bag/coat/etc isn't worth us cleaning, because it's not a real $Brand, it's a knock-off". Despite all the garbage that came through, they did get a huge amount of really top-notch stuff. Being in a somewhat trendy area, there were regulars (some models and celebs) who would rotate their entire wardrobe every season, whether worn or not.