The rest, two truckloads of rubbish, was taken straight to the tip.

Manager of the Union Road store Leola Andersen said almost all the items left at the store at night were not genuine donations.

“They do it overnight because they know we’re not here and they don’t want to give it to us when we’re open because they know it’s not acceptable,” she said.

“If it was a legitimate donation they would either ask us to pick it up or leave it during the day.”

The Wodonga store on Melbourne Road had the same problem.

Part-time worker Gaynor Wright worked for four hours to clean up the mess left outside the store after the holiday period, with three Cleanaway bins filled and taken to the tip.

Over the Christmas and New Year break, Mrs Andersen went to the Union Road store almost every day to clean up the rubbish left there because “rubbish breeds rubbish”.

She gets to work at 7.30am every day, even though they don’t open until 9am, so she has time to clean away the mess left at night.

“It is demoralising, and we’re lucky our volunteers are so committed to continue coming to work,” Mrs Andersen said.

She counts their staff lucky because they have never found a syringe, but they still get filthy underwear and used feminine hygiene products dumped in the bins.

Three years ago the store had six bins at locations across city.

But people urinated into the bins, soiling all the goods inside.

Now they only have four bins behind the store with CCTV camera surveillance.

But one of the biggest issues remains with genuine donations being destroyed by others when left outside the store.

Mrs Andersen spent the weekend sweeping up glass after someone had smashed a donation left near the bins.

“We encourage people to ring us, we will pick up donations if they can’t drop them off through opening hours or if the bins are full,” she said.

“And preferably, don’t leave it there for people to destroy because it’s a public car park and shouldn’t be left in such a state.”

Editorial — page 20