Council rejects regulating clothing donation bins

There could be an impending turf war between for-profit companies and charities competing for clothing donations in Windsor, the CEO of Goodwill Industries warns.

City council rejected a motion to regulate charity donation boxes at Monday's meeting. That has Kevin Smith, who speaks for Goodwill Industries, sounding the alarm over a potential swarm of private companies dropping unauthorized boxes all over the city.

"They're coming,' Smith said. "They strip the community clean."

Though there are clothing bins for various charitable organizations throughout the city, there aren't any rules about labelling the donation bins.

That creates a situation where residents could be thinking they're donating to a charity, but instead are giving their clothes to a private company, Smith said. He envisions a situation where private companies place bins all over the city, taking away from clothes meant for charity, putting Goodwill employees out of work.  

Smith spoke alongside Rosanne Winger from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul supporting a motion from Coun. Irek Kusmierczyk asking council to institute a bylaw regulating how those boxes operate. Those requirements included:

• Only registered charities can install a box.

• Each bin would have a label identifying the charity.

• Contact information for the charity would be posted on the box.

• Charities would have liability insurance on the boxes.

• Property owners would be required to give their consent for boxes to be installed.

But several city councillors, as well as Mayor Drew Dilkens, don't think the problem is big enough to warrant action. They voted down the motion 8-2. Coun. Bill Marra was absent. 

"This is a solution looking for a problem," Dilkens said. "Over the past 10 years, there have only been five complaints about bins."

Coun. Hilary Payne also questioned whether another bylaw is needed to address an issue that doesn't appear to be on the radar yet.

There only appear to be four bins in the city that are run by a for-profit company.  

Smith said for-profit bins spring up from "nowhere" predicting 500 could be scattered throughout the city if something isn't done. He pointed to Ottawa, Chatham and Sarnia as examples where for-profit companies put in bins where problems came up. He said those communities instituted bylaws and the problems went away. 

Smith predicted Windsor could be next on the list for private companies to come in.

"Why wouldn't they come and try to dump [the bins] off? There would be no reason not to," Smith said. "You will see a significant drop in the goods donated to charities."