You have to pay to donate TV at Goodwill!

[akbjr]

Am visiting my brither & his family in Lincoln, Ne from my home in Anchorage, Ak , & my sister in law took me to hit up the largest local Goodwill store since we don't actually have any Goodwills in Anchorage. I was astonished that paperback books were .99 there, as I'm used to paying 3 for $1.00 to .50 each in Anchorage...(Didn't stop me from getting a bunch), anyway, yesterday they donated a very good working TV in it's original box with it's remote & original instruction book to Goodwill & apparently there is a policy that you have to pay $5.00 to donate a TV to Goodwill. I was shocked! Is this a nationwide policy? Why is it? Curious, thanks.

[Jay2TheRescue]

My guess is the $5 helps cover the recycling fees they would have to pay should the TV not sell.  I had to get rid of a bunch of old worn-out monitors, and found out locally, most places charge $10/ea to dispose of them.  I did a little more research, and found there was a Dell recycling program where you could get any Dell item recycled for free.  Ended up being the ONLY time I was ever happy we had Dells, as it would have cost me over $100 to dispose of all the old monitors.

[Good Buddy]

Man Jay, that's alot of monitors!

[Jay2TheRescue]

Well, I do have 15 computers at work...  The old CRT monitors got so old, that I could no longer read the screens.  Microcenter had a deal on LCD flat panel monitors for $70/ea, so I replaced all of them.

[valleythriftshopper]

The Salvation army here has become more picky about accepting TV's but they don't charge. They did say they were not selling that well, it doesn't help that they charge too much for them, I'm sure.  I haven't heard about Goodwill charging around here, but I hardly ever go there.   

You can take any Dell product to Staples for free recycling, that includes printers, monitors, computers, etc. They will also take any old cell phones for free recycling.   You can always try offering a working TV or monitor on Freecycle too. 

[Sir Thrift-A-Lot]

The Goodwill's I frequent do not sell TV's, unless they are in the auctions, which is only held at the one Goodwill once a week on Saturdays for the "good stuff", which is rarely that good to me, but it's the same people there every week.

I imagine too, that it's to cover the recycling fees if it doesn't sell. It's too bad that they don't let the other donations cover the cost of recycling the TVs that are donated & do not sell.

99cents is cheap for books, you should consider yourself lucky! I'm used to paying it, so I don't complain often, but books are $2.49 - $3.49 & 99cents for a childs book at my Goodwill. Pricey, eh?