Furniture donations – what you need to know

British Safety Specification

There are some things our furniture and electrical stores can’t sell for safety or legal reasons. If you’re not sure whether we can sell your donations, please take a look at our list here.

• We can only accept upholstered items if there is a label attached that lets us know it meets UK safety standards.
• The items must also have a fire label sewn in, which refers to BS7177 – the British Safety Specification for resistance to ignition of mattresses, divans and bed bases.

Fire labels

In order for us to be able to sell the items you donate, some of them have to meet certain safety standards. Below are some examples of fire safety labels for upholstered items.

Fire labels are permanent and will be sewn into or stapled to the item. Unfortunately, we cannot accept donations where the labels are not on each individual item. The fire label may be on any external surface of the item, including underneath removable seating and cushions.

Whatever you donate will make a difference. Sales from furniture, fashion and homeware donations raise over £1,000,000 each year, making our vital work in the community possible.

Helping the environment

Just by shopping and donating with us, you’re helping the environment by reducing waste. Here are other ways donating your goods and shopping with us help protect the planet.

Like many charity shops, ours are recycling hubs for your community. We sort donated goods into stock that we can sell in our shops, and anything we can’t sell is passed on to other organisations that can use or recycle them, so we still make money from them. Charities like us reuse or recycle well over 320,000 tonnes of textiles each year (Association of Charity Shops).

Our eco-friendly greetings cards are printed on chlorine-free wood pulp from carefully managed, renewable forests, approved by the Forest Stewardship Council.

The reuse and recycling activity of UK charity shops helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 6.8m tonnes per annum (based on Greenhouse gas reporting – conversion factors 2016).

Gift Aid your donations

Every £1 raised from your gift-aided donations raises another 25p for the hospice at no extra cost to you. Please remember to Gift Aid your donations to our shops – find out how below.

Become a Gift Aid Supporter

If you are a UK tax payer, please fill out a Gift Aid declaration form when you donate goods to us. Gift Aid is a government scheme which allows registered charities in the UK to claim tax back from the Inland Revenue. If you fill in a declaration form, we can claim back 25p for every £1 your donation generates. It is very simple to do and doesn’t cost you anything, but makes a huge difference to us as a charity.

Don’t use it? We’d love it!

Your donations help us care for local patients and families.