York's rogue clothing bins: how to avoid them, donate to charity

Yorkregion.com
Aug. 22, 2017
By Tim Kelly

They're not a pretty sight and they can be found all over York region - overstuffed rogue clothing bins.

We just keep on putting our old clothes in, and sometimes our garbage too, and onto the ground next to these bins.

Whether it be the Walmart off Highway 48 in Stouffville where a bin is stuffed with clothes and garbage piled up on both sides or a bin at a Markham Tim Hortons that refused to go away or in Newmarket or Aurora or Vaughan, these bins proliferate.

It's not clear who operates them, where the proceeds from the donations go or if they are even charitable.

A tiny amount of the proceeds from the bin may go to a registered charity and the rest may go into an owner's pocket.

Calls to the owners of the bins go to an answering machine and aren't returned. Emails to the bin owners remain unanswered.

But people, not knowing what else to do with their unwanted old pants, shirts or shoes, keep dumping them in the rogue bins.

It was all too much for Sue McLellan, a Tim Hortons franchise owner in Markham who got fed up with her own rogue-bin horror story this past year.

"A couple of years ago, they put a bin on my property without even asking me. I phoned them repeatedly, the clothing was on the ground ... finally we called the police who said we have the right to remove it. We got rid of it and they brought in another one.

"It does not look good. When you drive into the parking lot, that's the first thing you see, stuff all over the ground."

McLellan eventually got rid of the second bin and the rogue-bin operators have not returned since.

That may be in part because of Markham's innovative textile recycling program that was introduced in the city in October. Since it began, the program has recycled 4.5 million pounds of textiles, according to Claudia Marsales, the city's senior manager of waste and environmental management.

Before the program began, Markham was plagued with about 120 rogue bins, Marsales said. She said now that there are more than 100 City of Markham bins throughout the city at fire halls, recreation facilities and other public buildings, the rogue bins have largely disappeared.

In fact, more than 60 of those bins have been relocated to a "bin graveyard" at the city's works depot at 8100 Warden Ave., Marsales jokes.

The textiles collected at the city's bins are donated to Markham's charity partners, the Salvation Army, Diabetes Canada and STEPS, a charity that helps those with addiction issues.

"They (charitable partners) have to prove to us that 100 per cent of what they received from donated textiles, minus operating expenses, goes to charity. That's totally different from for-profit (rogue) bins; they might give 5 per cent or 1 per cent to charity and keep the rest for profit," said Marsales.

She said though rogue bins are not a new problem, "we have a new solution."

And she added that other municipalities in the GTA are taking a look at Markham's approach to the problem.

"It is a competitive landscape, but there are bona fide bins where charities do pay the licensing fees like us," said Diabetes Canada's Paul Gilbertus.

He said the partnership with the City of Markham has been ideal, but added that Diabetes Canada has 4,000 of its own clothing bins in licensed spaces across Canada.

"We are the largest player in the charitable sector in the (clothing bin) space, we've been doing it since 1985. We earn $10 million a year from the clothing business out of $50 million in revenue," said Gilbertus.

"Our model is to be completely above-board, but you do have rogue operators with a tenuous charitable link, but those would mostly be wooden bins; it does make the whole industry look less than legitimate," he said.

"We're trying to add a lot of value. One hundred per cent of the net proceeds go to charitable proceeds," Gilbertus said.