If you've been driving around with bags of clothes in your boot ready to off-load at the nearest charity bin but can't find one, you're not alone.
For years now, local governments, private landowners — and sometimes charity shops themselves — have been removing the bins which are all too often left in an unsightly state due to illegal dumping and vandalism.
Despite the mess often scattered around them, the bins generate much-needed funding for not-for-profit organisations and provide equal opportunity employment to West Australians.
Good Sammy employs 300 people in WA with disabilities.
CEO Kane Blackman said the organisation had gone from having 500 charity bins in the WA community, to just 200.
"We have 40 per cent of our workforce with a disability, and we need donations through these charity collection points so people can have a job and sell to our customers," he said.
"Each community collection point collects about 10,000 kilograms of textiles each year, so having [charity bins] is critical for Good Sammy's supply of recycled goods to sell in stores.
"[About] 30,000 West Australians enter one of our 27 shops every week and our core mission is disability employment."
Drop in donations
Mr Blackman said the quantity of donations had been significantly affected by some local governments banning charity bins.
And while people could still drop off donations in store, this option was not as popular, leaving charities with a big shortfall.
"We certainly notice in tougher times that there are a lot of people that do come into our stores because of the low price point," Mr Blackman said.
"And we like to be able to keep servicing them as best we can."
Mr Blackman said dropping off pre-loved items was one of the most effective ways to reduce waste and contribute to the circular economy.
"The best way to do that is to promote recycling, to work with charities, and to have accessible community collection points," he said.
Australians are some of the biggest consumers of textiles in the world — buying an average of 14.8kg or 48 new items of clothing every year.
The Australian Fashion Council estimates charities sort through 720 million items of clothing per year, some 190,000 tonnes of pre-loved fashion.
The shortfall felt at Good Sammy has also been noticed at Alinea, formerly known as the Spine and Limb Foundation, which has lost around 100 charity bins over the past nine years.
Joseph Tuscon, the manager of Alinea's commercial services ParaQuad Industries, said it was disappointing some local governments banned the bins regardless of where they were placed or how well they were kept.
"I think they take the easy way out sometimes," he said.
"I'd like local governments and the community in general to just see the vendors for what they are — a convenient means for people to redistribute and help society by donating used and unwanted goods."
Alinea and Good Sammy have implemented measures to reduce dumping, including putting up CCTV cameras, placing the bins in well-lit, well-trafficked areas, and having people regularly tend to the bins and remove donations and rubbish.
Councils seek alternatives to bins
In 2015, the City of Joondalup became the first local government in WA to ban the bins on council-owned land.
They now hold days where residents can drop off goods to the council, which then works with charities to distribute the donations.
But due to the pandemic, the last clothing donation day was held in January 2021.
City of Joondalup Deputy Mayor Christine Hamilton-Prime called the last donation day an overwhelming success.
"Many people were using charity bins as convenient places to dump unwanted goods and bulk rubbish, which is a littering offence," she said.
"The ban only applied to city-owned land and not privately-owned land, such as shopping centres, where charity bins were still permitted."
Mr Tuscon said when it came to local governments, it was a mixed bag.
"The Town of Cambridge and City of Subiaco are just as severe as the City of Joondalup who have blanket banned charity bins on any city land," he said.
"City of Melville, City of Stirling are good and they support us. The City of Canning aren't too bad, but a lot of the others just won't have bins at all."
St Vincent de Paul manager of social enterprise Carl Prowse said with the rising cost of living, more people than ever were accessing the charity's crisis services.
"From mental health to homeless and youth services, a lot more people are requesting support from us in what is a true sad state of affairs," he said.
Mr Prowse said Vinnies kept its charity bins on private property like churches and school grounds, so donation numbers remained high and local governments could not have them removed.
"We have less dumping than what some of the other charities have, because we're not in shopping centre car parks and so on. We have less people rifling through the donations and breaking into the bins," he said.
"But it's still a regular thing. Too often, to be honest, it happens."
"And sadly, when people start splitting bags open, if it then does rain, if everything's wet, there's not much we can do with it, it really has to go to the tip."
But Vinnies has another problem.
Mr Prowse said his organisation was struggling to deal with the quantity of donations, as volunteer numbers were so low they often had to intermittently refuse donations at some stores.
"We were 2,500-3,000 volunteers. We're sitting at about half that at the moment at a time where there's more people needing our support and stock being donated at our shops but not enough volunteers to sort through it," he said.
Good Sammy's Kane Blackman is calling for thoughtful, warm donations this winter, and local governments to come to the table.
"We're calling for quality donations, around the winter period, thick winter coats. You know, in terms of thick pants in terms of beanies, we're always after those quality donations," he said.
"We would like to see more local governments say yes to charity collection points. We believe that's important to help divert items from landfill and achieve the recycling and sustainability goals that are set for our state."
