I eat junk food, cook food that's past the expiration date as long as it doesn't look/smell fishy, and I wear old clothes. My clothing probably isn't too fashionable either and my mattress isn't spotless.

No, I probably wouldn't dress a baby in “highly flammable second-hand sleepwear” but the critical part of that phrase is “highly flammable”, not “second-hand”. It's ridiculous to suggest that because clothing isn't good-as-new to automatically assume it's a “highly flammable” health hazard.

> What makes it acceptable to purchase a brand new electrical appliance and dispose of the old, worn and unsafe one to the less fortunate? What message does it send?

I use old appliances all the time. Sometimes I do replace them. But just the act of buying something new does not make the old any less usable. What message does it send that those old appliances are good enough for me, but they are below the standards of people who can't afford to buy their own?

You missed the point of my comment — donors contemning the less fortunate by throwing them scraps.

It was not an argument about the minimum technical specifications of donated goods. Nor was it an argument about donated goods needing to be brand new.

This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when the homeless rise up and reject Elaine's castoff "muffin stumps". This is not food! We are too dignified to eat the stumps left by the customers of your Muffin Top Cafe!

That "Only donate what you would buy" dictum is just as misguided.

I did buy it once. I just don't need it anymore. Maybe someone else can find some use for it.

―The food bank sometimes receives items with virtually no nutritional value -- "candy and crap" says Aason, which are sometimes tossed, and sometimes used as "filler items." It's not stuff that they want, but the junk food is part and parcel with reclamation.[1]

―"There are things that are not even usable. We can't sell it in the store."[2]

―"We want saleable donations only," a Red Cross spokeswoman said[3]

―"What people take out of our store, we would actually wear ourself."[4]

―“Every Monday, we waste time sorting other people’s rubbish instead of preparing clothing and furniture for sale for people in need,” Mrs Barrett said.[5]

―"A good donation is something which is unbroken, complete, clean and sellable."[6]

―“If people are trying to get rid of stuff, use the tip; we only take items that are in good condition and that people can use.”[7]

―Barbara Cunningham, Sails Outlet's volunteer manager, said people dump unusable items at the thrift store two to three times a week. Recently, they found a queen-size mattress tossed outside the door.[8]

―McLellan suggests donors ask themselves, “would I buy this?”[9]

―“They wouldn’t buy it themselves, but they think other people will.”[9]

―“The appliances and that kind of thing, we want them working. We don’t them to come in without a cord, or a broken anything. There are standards — you can’t sell things that aren’t in good order.”[9]

―“These are things that should be taken to the dump,” said Thrift Store Manager Sheila Combs. “Who wants half a pool table — and a broken one to boot?”[10]

―“We couldn’t get rid of the TVs if we slapped a $2 sticker on them,” Combs said Wednesday. “As for these computer things… we don’t even have a computer so we don’t know if they work.”[10]

[1] http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/04/26/Greater-Vancouver-Food-Ban...

[2] http://www.sunjournal.com/node/100881

[3] http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/charities-report-incre...

[4] http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2011/05/11/18135666.html

[5] http://www.portnews.com.au/news/local/news/general/tip-fees-...

[6] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/sep/06/charities.volu...

[7] http://www.westernadvocate.com.au/news/local/news/general/tr...

[8] http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2011/09/22/1650943/tri-city-th...

[9] http://www.rosslandnews.com/news/121669949.html

[10] http://www.revelstokecurrent.com/2011/05/25/thoughtless-peop...

I feel like you're cherry picking examples to prove a somewhat dubious point.

I would like clarification: Are you advocating we shouldn't donate used items to charity, or that we shouldn't donate unusable items to charity?

If the former, then how do you propose those less fortunate purchase items outside of their budget? I've gone to thrift and goodwill stores; many of the electronics and clothing there are perfectly usable.

If the latter, I completely agree, though am not sure why this is pertinent to the discussion. Broken junk isn't generally sellable except as scrap.

That has always been a funny scene for me: somebody feels guiltily about throwing away there junk, so they "donate" it to charity.

Give me a break, nobody can use that junk!

Pass me that junk, I want the stepper motors.

That sounds a whole lot like everyday life in the "third world".

Would you dress your child in last years baby clothes now that the regulations have changed?

We had this panic here - everybody had to throw out their Nalgene water bottles because they contain PBA and it MIGHT leach out AND it might be a health hazard - although we had been using them for 20years

The BPA problem (and hence the Nalgene problem) was discovered because it was interrupting people's research on other things due to BPA leeching out of polycarbonate lab ware, causing differences between cell cultures grown in the plastic and those grown in traditional glass petri dishes when they were supposed to be behaving in an identical manner. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/132/the-real-story-on-bp... http://suss.stanford.edu/blog/?p=4119 That's Real Science.

If you'd like to dig it out for yourself, the search terms are: Stanford cancer bpa

(Yes, I'm well-aware that studies sponsored by chemical companies find no problem whatsoever. Quelle surprise.)

It's a long way from the cell culture to the human being when it comes to pharmaceutical effects. That is one of the main reasons it costs so much to develop new drugs--most compounds that produce promising effects in vitro are indistinguishable from placebo during human trials (if they even get that far).

The pharmaceutical industry actually tested BPA as an estrogen replacement decades ago, and did not adopt it because BPA did not produce measurable results. Today most of the BPA warnings are based on extrapolations from cell cultures. But based on the history of drug development such extrapolations are rarely valid. This is why U.S. regulatory agencies have not banned BPA; there just hasn't any solid evidence yet that BPA harms humans at the incidental levels of exposure most people experience.

I don't see how the length of use has any bearing on the appropriate response to something (potentially) being a health hazard.