英国牛津饥荒救济委员会（Oxfam）近日向该国国民发出请求，希望他们在向这家机构所属商店捐赠物品时能做到进一步精挑细选。该委员会说，他们收到的很多捐赠品都不过是“一堆垃圾”，而为了筛选并处理掉这些废物每年需花费数十万英镑。

    据路透社9月6日报道，牛津饥荒救济委员会在全英各地共有750家商店，它们依靠出售公众捐赠的各种物品来为该机构在世界各地的慈善计划筹措资金。该委员会贸易部主管克里斯·科9月6日表示，“社会各界如此踊跃地捐赠各种物品不禁令我们心存感激，但如同任何一家零售商那样，对我们来说这些东西有的是可以卖出的，有的则是无法卖掉的”，“越来越多的人将我们这里当做了处理垃圾物品的场所”。

    克里斯还针对上述说法举了一个例子，该机构设在伦敦温布尔登的商店于5日收到了一箱捐赠品，里面装满了各式各样的假牙，而这些恰恰是他们根本不想要的。每年在分捡、储存和处理那些不合适的捐赠品（诸如不能再使用的电器和破旧的衣物等）上要花掉50万英镑，而这一数字几乎等同于该机构2005年在卢旺达或厄立特里亚的慈善计划的花费。

    根据英国慈善商店联合会的估计，每年全英国在这一问题上浪费掉的资金总计可达450万英镑。对此，该联合会的执行秘书莱卡·克鲁达表示：“我们请求人们运用生活中的常识来对家中的各种物品做出判断，看看它们到底是适合被捐赠给慈善商店，还是应当送到别处加以循环利用。”

    Oxfam has asked Britons to be more selective about items they give to the charity's shops, saying many donations were just "rubbish" that cost 500,000 pounds a year to sift through and dispose of.

    "We're so grateful for the incredible donations we receive from the community, but like any retailer there are things we can and cannot sell," Chris Coe, Oxfam's director of trading, said on Tuesday.

    "Increasingly people are just giving us rubbish."

    He told BBC radio that such an example of unwanted goods was the box of assorted false teeth donated on Monday to the charity's store in Wimbledon.

    Oxfam has 750 shops across the country, selling items donated from the public to raise money for its projects around the world.

    It said it spent half a million pounds a year sorting, storing and getting rid of unsuitable donations such as broken electrical items or worn out clothes.

    The figure was almost as much as it was spending on projects in Rwanda or Eritrea in 2005.

    The Association of Charity Shops estimates that in total about 4.5 million pounds was wasted each year on the problem.

    "We ask that people use common sense in deciding whether the items are suitable to donate to charity shops or whether they should be recycled elsewhere," said Lekha Klouda, the association's executive secretary.