City law bans such bins from being placed on sidewalks and streets; they are legal on private property with the consent of the owner. Once found by Sanitation Department enforcement officers or reported by residents to the city’s 311 help line, an illegal bin is tagged and the owner has 30 days to remove it. Summonses are not issued, a department spokeswoman explained, based on the theory that those distributing the bins have factored any fines into the cost of doing business.
A similar pattern has emerged nationally, according to officials at leading charities. They are alarmed by the misleading competition, which, they maintain, is undermining their own efforts.
“These dark-of-night property violators have proliferated nationwide,” said Jim Gibbons, the president and chief executive of Goodwill Industries International Inc. “They use a charitable veneer then extract the value for their business, versus the Salvation Army or St. Vincent de Paul, where the value is distributed in a more thoughtful way throughout the community.”
A growing number of companies — many of them based in New Jersey — are illegally placing used-clothing bins throughout New York City, blocking sidewalks and serving as magnets for litter and graffiti. The receptacles typically have signs that indicate donated goods will go to the poor or, in some cases, to legitimate charities. But, city officials said, the needy do not benefit from much of what is collected. Instead, the clothing is often sold in thrift stores or in bulk oveseas, with the proceeds going to for-profit entities that can be impossible to trace, or even to contact.
“They have become the bane of our existence,” Kathryn Garcia, the city’s sanitation commissioner, said. “We have seen a significant uptick in the number of clothing bins placed illegally on public sidewalks. A dramatic increase.”
Our Neighborhood Recycling manager Bernard Jones insisted that the company, which has a warehouse in Jersey City, got permission from all property owners to install them.
“We tell them exactly what we’re doing and it’s up to them to say yes or no,” he said.
[Jones] added that the company plans to resell donated clothing to other clothing vendors, as well as to companies that use the clothing to make rags. The signage, he said, makes it clear the organization is not a charity.
“It doesn’t say ‘donations.’ It says ‘recycling,’” he said.
A woman who answered a call placed to the phone number on the box said Our Neighborhood Recycling ships the clothes overseas but hung up without giving more details. Community leaders said they fear whomever is placing the boxes around the neighborhood is taking the clothes donations and selling them for personal profit.
