The reason I ask is there’s a lot of fishy stuff about them. The bin itself will cost about $1000. And they’re usually for these oddball charities like “East Side Families” or something. And it doesn’t seem like they have permission from the parking lots. I’ll notice that a parking lot will have 1, then 2, then 4, then 6, and then none. After a while 1 or 2 will creep back and the process will repeat. When I see the stuff collected, it’ll be done in a big truck (U-Haul size) with a couple of guys. How can they get enough clothing to make it worthwhile for a truck and two guys?
So is it really for charity? Anyone know the behind-the-scenes story of these things.
We have a certain type here that are all over town. The sign on the side of the one near my house says that it is not a charitable donation site but that items will be sold. Or something to that effect.
I like to get a nice receipt from whoever I donate things to, and try to stick with places I know are real charities. That being said I have not seen what you are describing.
I have seen Goodwill stations like that, and I’ve dropped items off in them.
Having said that, these days we donate our stuff to a local charity that calls us up about once a month to tell us when they’ll be driving a truck down the street, and we leave our stuff in boxes in the driveway for them.
I was looking for more images for the bins and came across this article Laws Seek to Counter Clothing-Bin Fraud. I think that might be what’s going on in my area. The article states that in many cases the items are sold for profit or sent to 3rd world countries where they end up hurting local businesses.
I did some more followup on these bins. I figure I’ll post it here in case anyone is interested.
It seems there are two categories of bins: charities and for-profit. The charity bins typically have the name of the charity and information on how you can get a receipt for your donation. The for-profit bins typically say they are for recycling of shoes, clothes, whatever. I called a few of them to get more info. The charities were all very up-front about how they handled the donations and the communities they benefitted. The recycling ones were more vague, saying things like they help the community but didn’t give any details. None of the people I talked to seemed to know if their companies got permission to put the bins in the parking lots, but they said they would remove them if asked.
So as best as I can tell, these companies place the bins in parking lots without asking for permission. None of them seemed to be true scams. They are not lying about what they do with the donations. Although, the for-profit ones seem to be a little deceptive in that someone may infer that the donations are for a charitable cause.
