Send the branch a written list before the car is loaded, because the refusals are published and specific. Oxfam GB names eight categories its shops in England, Wales and Scotland cannot accept: mains electrical goods, medical equipment, anything broken, dirty, incomplete or unsafe, single computers, white goods, safety headgear, identifiable work uniforms, and mobile phones and tablets. The condition that changes the answer is the branch itself, because a few shops do take mains electricals, so the shop settles that one and the website does not.

What the published list actually covers

The same page lists what those shops can sell, and the list is longer than most donors expect: clean clothing in good condition, including children's and out-of-season items, shoes in pairs, bags, belts, hats and scarves, jewellery and watches, books, CDs, vinyl, sheet music and instruments, DVDs and Blu-rays, china and kitchenware, small rugs, linen and curtains, knitted items and blankets, toys and games, wedding dresses, furniture, stamps, foreign coins and notes, cameras, and unused toiletries. Bedding is accepted when it is in good condition.

Three refusals in the same page's questions catch people out. Car seats and prams are refused for safety reasons. Sharp knives and other sharp cooking utensils are refused, though cutlery sets are taken when clean. Battery-powered devices may be accepted, with the batteries removed first.

Write the offer so one reply can answer it

An enquiry that names quantity, condition and any missing parts can be answered in a sentence; one that says "some bits and pieces" cannot. Give the count, the category and the defects: six paperbacks, two clean wool coats, one kettle that runs off the mains. Ask three things: whether the branch takes these now, whether there is a quantity limit or a booking time, and what to do with anything unsuitable.

Do not repair, launder or transport everything before asking. The work is wasted when the answer is no, and volunteers did not agree to inherit a job the donor decided against.

Example: nine items, one phone call

An example, worked against the published list. Nine items leave a clear-out: six paperbacks, two clean coats and a kettle. Eight of them sit on the accepted list without a query, which is what makes them worth a single trip. The kettle is the one item that needs the call, because it runs off the mains and only some shops take those. One person writes the list with the condition of each coat; the other rings the branch and writes down the answer next to the item rather than remembering it.

Tagging the bag matters to the arithmetic: Oxfam adds 25% through Gift Aid when the donated items sell, so a bag that raises £40 in the shop raises £50 for the charity. Nothing else about the donation changes.

What happens to what does not sell

The destination question is worth asking if it matters to you, and this charity answers it. Unsold stock moves to another Oxfam shop, the online shop or an online marketplace, the summer festival shops, recycling partners, or Oxfam's sorting plant at Batley in West Yorkshire, where items are graded by hand. Low-grade textiles are sold on to recycling traders and turned into products such as car soundproofing and mattress stuffing. Oxfam's Batley warehouse and its partners handle 12,000 tonnes of textiles a year, and the charity opened that facility in 1974.

That scale is small against the flow. The EEA puts EU-27 textile consumption at 15 kg per person in 2020, made up of 6.0 kg of clothing, 6.1 kg of household textiles and 2.7 kg of footwear, and the separate collection rate for used textiles ranged from 4.5% in Latvia to 45% in the Netherlands. "Donated" describes where a bag went, not what happened to it.

Decide the refusals' route before you leave the house

Write the fallback next to each item: another named recipient, the council's waste or textile collection, or a repair question. Bags left outside a closed shop are not a donation. Mains electricals that the branch declines are electrical waste, and the local authority's own service says where they go.

Keep the owners in the decision when the clear-out is shared. A shelf of things that are still wanted occasionally is a different answer from a donation, and so is a shared shelf of things to borrow. Clothing in good condition that nobody in the house wants can go through a clothes swap planned so that it works for everyone before it reaches a shop at all, and anything that ends up in a bin is worth following through where household waste actually goes.

Sources