Second-hand clothing charity Terre struggling as people use collection bins for rubbish

Terre has been collecting second-hand clothing for more than 60 years, but the non-profit is facing financial difficulties due to the amount of waste that it is forced to process and dispose of because people abuse their collection sites.

Terre has 2,500 drop-off points across Wallonia and Brussels, where people can leave used clothing to be collected, sorted and sold second-hand in 30 shops.

An average of 19,000 tonnes of material is collected every year, but more and more of that is non-textile waste – and some of it is even hazardous.

“The strangest things I've found are sheep heads, disembowelled sheep, dead chickens,” Geoffrey Robin told RTBF. He has been emptying the bins for a decade and has noticed a rise in rubbish.

“There's been an increase. People are putting their household waste in the bins.”

Because the bins are in public places, local authorities also require Terre to maintain the area around them. That, too, is often used as a dumping ground for assorted waste such as old furniture and broken glass, adding more work for Terre’s staff.

“It's not our purpose, but we have to do it,” Terre director Christian Dessart said.

“As a social enterprise designed to create jobs in the textile recycling sector, we have to dedicate staff to collecting and sorting bins. And we pay a private company that does us no favours for the disposal and treatment of this waste.”

The cost of this task is astronomical, and a serious drain on the non-profit association's budget, said Dessart.

“We've reached a threshold that we feared and hoped we wouldn't reach. For the past two years, it’s been costing us €1 million annually. Ultimately, this could jeopardise our core business.”

The non-profit has conducted a number of awareness-raising campaigns to promote the message that "clothing bins are not rubbish bins", but the charity said that the campaigns have only been relatively effective.

“Our experience is that there’s an improvement for two or three weeks after the campaigns, but then the rubbish starts to pile up again,” Dessart said, adding that while the waste is constantly increasing, the organisation is holding out hope for change.

“I'm delighted with the younger generation,” said Dessart. “From school onwards, young people are taught about sorting and recycling. That makes me happy and gives me hope for the future.”