Volunteers turn to social media to stop donations being ‘rifled through and smashed’

A Mount Gambier op shop has begun posting CCTV footage of people dumping rubbish and rifling through donations to raise awareness about the problem.

Grantville Court Salvation Army store manager Shauna Wood said many people did not realise how their poor behaviour affected volunteer-run stores.

“Everything in good clean condition, we can resell and put that money straight back into the community,” Ms Wood said.

“That takes away valuable funds that could be going into the community.”

Ms Wood said dumped unsaleable items and rubbish hurt the store financially.

“A lot of people may not realise that we have to actually pay for this rubbish to get dumped the proper way,” she said.

Examples of some recent rubbish left behind include a large box and packing foam from a new TV  and a broken bike.

Out-of-hours a no-go

Ms Wood said by posting footage she hoped the community would not leave donations at the shop after hours because there had been many instances of people rifling through items overnight.

“They take everything or they smash things,” Ms Wood said.

“It’s quite disheartening when our volunteers turn up to work and you’ve got things that have been rifled through and smashed.

“That’s also taking away from funds that could be put into the community.”

Ms Wood said the shop offered a pick-up service to avoid the situation.

“I know that it can be hard to come during business hours sometimes, but we do offer a free pickup service,” she said.

“If you’ve got good clean items, good saleable items, that you can’t get to us in business hours, give us a call.”

‘Heartbreaking’

Ms Wood said volunteers put their “heart and soul” into the op shop and found it “disheartening” when rubbish was left behind.

“For them to have to be cleaning up items that have been donated outside the shop, out of hours, that someone else has come along and trashed, it’s just heartbreaking.”