Dirty underwear, a frying pan where the croquettes are still in: it is just some examples of unusable junk that is handed in at thrift store Vincentius in Boxtel. The store has recently seen an increase in totally unusable items. Vincentius wants to stop the collection of the mess with a flyer action.
“To prevent misunderstandings: Vincentius is of course happy when people bring things,” begins Hendrien Dercksen of the Boxtelse Kringloopwinkel. But then it must be things that are good and can be sold. And it sometimes goes wrong there.
In a courtyard behind the store is a row of clicks full of mess that has been returned. Underwear with holes in it for example. Or dirty pans. “In fact, people have to wonder if they would like to buy that themselves,” says Hendrien.
“Most of the things that people bring are fantastic, such as ironed towels, but unfortunately there are also false notes in between. Broken shoes, holes in the soles .. We come across everything,” says Hendrien. “It will be too much, we have more and more people to sort it out. We should certainly go to the environment once or twice a week.”
Sometimes even garbage bags with junk are put in front of the door when the thrift store is closed. “It may be that people think: we probably put some sinks down with clothing, but we also had that it is actually just a bag of waste that just has to go to the dump,” says Hendrien.
She suspects that some people do it unconsciously, but that the increased costs at the environment also play a role. “We think from our philosophy: they will not be able to afford it. But we can’t be too sweet either.”
The thrift store brings around 25 clicks with waste to the environment every week. “We are looking for everything and split everything. Iron at the iron and plastic at the plastic. The national policy is that the thrift stores can only bring about 10 percent to the landfill in a few years, of everything that has come in,” says Hendrien.
At De Kringloop they regularly experience that people bring in the household effects of a deceased family member, without looking at it themselves. “Then you will also find a basket with curlers or medicines,” says Hendrien.
Examples of what is unusable are there too: “The frying pan, where croquettes were still, is an extreme example. But we have also had a bag of frozen products that were already thawing. And very dirty underwear or dirty sheets, broken cushions.”
For Vincentius it is now done with that junk, says Hendrien: “We sometimes call: we are almost becoming a second environment. We want to prevent that. Because we really want to recycle things, we do our best for that.”
With the Flyeractie, the cycle hopes to make people aware that waste is not possible. “It should not be that an organization is confronted with extra work pressure and costs, as we are.”