This was the situation at the salvation army's donation booth at Bishan over the new year weekend holiday. As reported by mothership.sg, piles of items were stacked high and spilling over, overwhelming the small area.
Evidently, many Singaporeans were taking advantage of the long weekend to do some spring cleaning and decluttering. It is truly heartwarming to see so many Singaporeans wanting to pass their underused items to new homes or to help others in need. Especially so since it also helps the environment as fewer items get thrown into landfills!
That being said, this overwhelming of such donation booths creates a rather messy situation that would cause many headaches for the staff who have to sort through and organise all the donations. Not to mention the occasional inconsiderate ones who sneak broken or unusable items in with the donations.
We do love to see this movement of giving and reusing but we believe Scratchbac's model of proximity-based peer to peer giving can be a good alternative when donation booths are overly crowded. Here's a couple of reasons why:
1) It reduces the strain on a staff needing to sort and rehome your items.
When it comes to particularly busy seasons in the year, donations can pile up very quickly. By giving away items yourself, you can help to ease the workload of such organisations who often rely on volunteers to help sort the goods out.
2) It's convenient for both parties in close proximity to meet and pass on the items
Here is a great example by a scratchbac user who managed to get a couple of free office chairs from her neighbour that she simply wheeled back home!
3) You can be assured that your items end up with someone who genuinely wants and needs it.
Being peer to peer, you not only get to know who you are giving to, but you can also get a chance to meet the person! This may seem daunting or a hassle, but in fact, it is a great ice breaker to meeting neighbours with similar interests. In fact, we even saw an uptick in the number of giveaways on the Scratchbac bot over the weekend.
Here are some examples:
We are so happy to know that Scratchbac can help items end up in good homes where they can be put to use. If you want to get on board and get sharing, Click here to get notified the moment our app launches!