Closed Bay Area thrift stores buried by dumped donations

Sheltering in place has taken spring cleaning to a new level, inspiring the homebound to dig really deep into long-cluttered closets, spare rooms and garages.

But what nonprofits and thrift stores like Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul don’t want them to do is drop off those unused clothes, old appliances, discarded toys, faded couches and other home goods at their sites, which are nearly all shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is no doubt people are cleaning out their closets,” said William Rogers, CEO of Goodwill Industries of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties. “There’s a lot of people who have been laid off, and in the interim are thinking I can get to this stuff that I wanted to clean up for a long time.”

Although all of Goodwill Industries’ retail stores have been closed in the Bay Area, they and other nonprofit thrift stores have seen an uptick in dumped donations. And that’s causing headaches because the few workers who aren’t on furlough have to drive around to all the stores to sort through the pileups.

“We have seen members of the public donation dumping at about 25 to 50 percent of Goodwills across the country,” said Lauren Lawson-Zilai, senior director of public relations at Goodwill Industries International. “Many Goodwills are running campaigns asking people to hold onto their donations until they open again, so they get the best use out of it.”

In the Bay Area, Rogers said San Mateo, San Francisco and Marin counties have seen an increase of about 25% in donation drops despite signs at drop-off sites warning people against it.

“We are really trying to discourage people from doing that,” he said. “I know when you clean your closet you really want to get it out of your house, but we are asking people to deny that impulse and just hang onto it. We will be so happy to take the donations when we reopen.”

Courtney Zito Forige of Brentwood has been doing full-scale cleaning since the shelter-in-place orders were issued last month but says she is leaving everything she’s bagged so far at home.

“I started with the pantry so I could see what I needed in order to stay home as much as possible,” she said. “From there, I moved on to every closet in the house, organizing and going through clothing to be donated. … I just keep adding to the pile of bags in my room as I continue spring cleaning.

“I have bags and bags just sitting in the corner of my bedroom till this is over,” she added.

Holding onto donations is just what thrift stores want people to do these days, as piled-up clothes and housewares not only can become eyesores but also may attract scavengers. And donated items touched by scavengers must be treated as if contaminated by a COVID-19 carrier and thus end up being taken to the trash pile instead of put to good use.

Some evidence suggests coronavirus germs could linger on certain surfaces for two to three days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

Michael Keenan, CEO of Greater East Bay Goodwill Industries, which serves Contra Costa, Alameda and Solano counties, said after seeing an initial surge in donations, he’s noticed that more people now seem to be adhering to requests to not drop off items, though there are exceptions.

“Two things are happening — some are still dropping off donations but some are just dropping off things that they don’t want,” he said. “So, the homeless are going through it, so what remains is stuff that has to be thrown away. … Even if it looks like a great donation, we still have to treat it as if it is contaminated.”

When pileups are found, workers equipped with protective gear have to haul the goods to the dump, which runs counter to the nonprofit’s goals to recycle or reuse whenever possible, Keenan said.

Before the pandemic, “very little of what we get goes into the landfill,” he said, adding that what donations didn’t sell at stores were sold by the pound to salvagers.

“We are also an environmental steward,” Keenan said. “We kept over 12 million pounds of products from going into the landfill. We have a lot of resellers — it’s an important thing a lot of people don’t understand. Not only are we helping people get jobs (at thrift stores) but we are also helping the environment.”

Rogers says workers with N-95 masks and other protective gear are regularly checking Goodwill sites for potential dumping. Donations that have not been rifled through are brought back to Goodwill’s storage facility and isolated, to be assessed after sheltering orders are lifted, he said.

Both Rogers and Keenan note that cleaning out the dumped goods means extra expenses for Goodwill, which operates on donation sales alone, but they believe it’s money well-spent.

“It does cost us — we have no income being generated in doing this,” Keenan said. “But we want to be the good community player. We are taking on the responsibility of keeping our stores as clean as we can.”

The additional costs, donation pileups and job losses are among the reasons the California Council of Goodwills recently asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to consider deeming its thrift stores “essential” so they can remain open, just like the Salvation Army.

Keenan acknowledged that reopening some of the thrift shops could raise other questions, however, such as whether there is an essential need for residents to venture out to drop off donations.

“Goodwills through the United States have a donation problem,” Keenan said. “Customers continue to donate and we are all facing the same problems, but we just have different ways of going about (handling) it.”

At St. Vincent de Paul, another nonprofit that serves as an economic stopgap for struggling people by providing jobs and homeless services and operating thrift stores, leaders worry about keeping workers safe and stores cleaned. The nonprofit’s family services center in Pittsburg and many food sites are still operating, but the retail thrift stores have shuttered.

“We rely on the thrift stores to not only provide goods for neighbors in need but jobs for the workforce development program,” Claudia Ramirez, Contra Costa’s executive director, said.

Ramirez noted her remaining staff members — 28 were furloughed in Contra Costa — are checking stores and when they find pileups they must pay dump fees to get rid of them. Even so, she would not want to reopen collection sites while coronavirus is still a threat, she said.

“I don’t want to send my staff out right now,” Ramirez said. “How do you accept donations and maintain social distances?”

St. Vincent de Paul is asking people to hold onto their excess household goods until it can begin doing furniture pickups again, Ramirez said.

“We’re expecting we are going to get a big boom in donations once people feel OK about getting back out again,” she said.

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