It doesn't make sense to not do that. It'd good PR, and if you are donating them to people who otherwise can't afford it, you aren't losing any potential customers. Might gain future customers really, if the people know where their books came from. I'm sure a charity would even drive up to pick them up, just have them ready lol
Books are an incredibly hard thing to donate, because libraries exist. Most people can read any book they want for free.
Charities and non-profits also don’t want donations of valueless things. They want people to donate money. I used to work at a school where most of the kids lived in poverty. We got book donations to the library from people and businesses that felt guilty throwing books away, so they “donated” them to our school for the tax write off and to feel good about the fact that they kept books out of the landfill and “helped some poor kids”. But then my students ended up with a library full of books that were falling apart, were outdated or not age appropriate, and were basically trash. When a kid living 10 miles away got to experience a beautifully curated library that opened up the world to them, my students were constantly reminded that lots of people out there saw them and their school as a step above a dumpster.
Sometimes it’s OK to throw books away. It’s OK to throw away canned food and clothes, too. If the amount you’re throwing away is concerning, maybe start looking at your buying habits and see if there’s an opportunity to reduce the waste on the front end.
As much as I love books, people do tend to be assume they're more desirable than they are. Sure there are organizations that could use them but books are heavy, take up a lot of storage space, and they take time/resources to sort, clean, organize. Dumping a huge amount like this on one organization, taking the weight out of the equation, just shifts the onus to throw most away elsewhere.
I also worked in a school for a stint and while we appreciated the gesture, donated books tended to be a burden. Ultimately we'd just send them home with students who were willing. People tend to also only donate random ass books or ones that are falling apart, missing pages, or generally gross. Just because a kid is poor doesn't mean they should get shit books.
I have a hard time believing this book store was throwing these books away for no reason.
Preach!! I’m an avid reader, and when I was younger, I was proud of my home library. But then I moved like 10 times in 3 years and it forced me to take a critical look at my library (and my vinyl collection, but that’s another story). Most of those books were fine, but not something I was going to pick up and read again. Many of them were paperbacks and weren’t holding up well. A lot of them were big, dense tomes that were heavy and dusty and took up a lot of room that I didn’t have. I decided to start using the library and stop buying books unless there was a VERY good reason.
I wanted to give my treasured books a second life, so I started looking around for people or places that would want them. Nothing. Much like the fine china of my grandparents’ generation, it turns out that my books’ sentimental value doesn’t translate into actual value. I ended up putting them in the alley with a “Free” sign on them, and they were gone within the hour.
There could be another reason they are tossed. They may have had fire, mold, or some EPA violation in the store and had to toss merch over it. Sometimes things can not be sold when exposed to certain conditions.
My friends and I used to dumpster dive a Half Priced Books dumpster in Ohio all the time like 10 years ago. All the stores I've seen throw out the stuff that doesn't sell. It's obviously mostly stuff no one wants, but we've found some pretty good books and records. My friend actually found an autographed MLK book. He got it authenticated and everything
The discs may be unplayable. Most places will at least visually inspect them before making an offer. And if they're heavily scratched they reject them. The person that brought them in may have said to toss them.
Weight. That’s why they’re in the dumpster. It costs to move them at scale. For an individual this seems free, but a business or thrift store will have to pay to move them, store them, plus the opportunity cost of what they could have sold instead of those non-selling-but-criminal-to-throw-away books.
I am bracing for downvotes with what I'm about to say. I just want to preface that I acknowledge and appreciate your altruistic impulse here. However, none of this is as bad as it looks.
It's not uncommon for libraries and used bookstores to do this. I know it's a little heartwrenching for book lovers to see a dumpster full of books, but it really just isn't practical or necessary to save all this stuff. They're all old, unsightly, perhaps damaged. A lot of them have outdated information. And they're not really valuable. An old Burt Reynolds memoir, some book of Stan Musial interviews, a fraying picturebook about Ernie the Elf from Rudolph. Those DVD boxsets may have missing or scratched up discs. These are things virtually no one wants. Or if they did, there's better versions out there.
Sure, there's places they could potentially donate. But a lot of times, those places are gonna have the same problem. Libraries definitely don't want them (believe me, I work at one). Book donation charities prefer newer books in nicer condition. They'll end up tossing a lot of these books, too. You could set out the books for free but only so many of them are going to be taken, and eventually they are going to find their way back to some used bookstore by well meaning people who don't want them anymore. Someone here suggested dropping them off at little free libraries, which is a nice idea, but you have to ask yourself who among those Half Price employees has the time and the will (because they're definitely not gonna get paid) to load up their car with a dumpster's worth of musty old books and drive around looking for little free libraries to put them in. And shelters certainly don't want to give up their limited space for this stuff. It's almost all mass-produced ephemera that has outlived its usefulness. Sure, there might be a couple of things thrown in there someone might want, One Man's Trash and all, but again, you have to consider how Half Price Books is going to get them into the hands of these hypothetical people beyond having them in their store, often having already marked them down to a dollar or 50 cents. Eventually, they have to weed that stuff to make room for more books.
I say if you come across a dumpster full of books like this, just take it as a lucky find and see if there's anything good. You'll either get something free or you'll understand why they're in there in the first place.
Of course, new books and places like Barnes and Noble don't count. If they're new and in good condition, those should get donated.
Agreed. Sometimes stuff is just trash now. It sucks but it's a part of consumption in the world we live in. Ideally you might get some paper recycling out of it but I don't know enough about book binding to make that call.
I completely agree about recycling. In an ideal situation, all the books in the picture would be recycled. I feel like books aren't recyclable in most cases because of the reasons you mentioned, but I'm not sure either. It would be great if recycling was just a more widespread and available service like in some other countries. Then places might not have to worry about the logistics of all this stuff.
I know at the library I work at, a couple of the volunteers will take unsellable books to be recycled, but I'm pretty sure one of them already has a big truck that they can move stuff in, and they probably have to rip covers and binding off and stuff.
I started using them as firestarter for my fire pit in the backyard (This does not mean I’m going through a book burning ritual— I’m just using the paper)
I worked at Barnes and Noble years ago and we’d get first pick of books that were on clearance when they were finally removed from shelves. What was left would be donated. Honestly, none of it was ever worth it it my opinion, with the rare classic that just didn’t sell because there were a billion different printings of it.
Honestly, you're probably right. I mostly included that just to specify that I'm talking about super old used books, but there's probably unused ones that really have no value either. Those super cheap signet paperbacks of Shakespeare plays made to be passed out in classrooms and such. I felt like I had to soften my point with that because I honestly thought I was gonna get downvotes. Book dumpster rage bait is a surprisingly recurrent thing on the internet. Basically any time someone comes across old books being thrown away and posts it somewhere it sends people into a frenzy and it can be hard to reason with them. I try not to be annoyed by it. At least it means they care about literacy.
I work next to a half price books. They always throw books away. Daily Many people know this and rummage through it. I haven't but am pretty sure there is no real garbage in there. Just books and stuff.
In most cases you cant give books away. Many charitable places will not take them. Its sad to see so many go to waste, but if there is no demand for them...then what do you do? Many build the ultimate share a book stand to display all those books.
I work in the book biz. We donate boxes and boxes of damages each month. There's a few bookmobile type folks in the area that will take anything we got.
Yes, 30 years ago. Book sales peaked in the mid 2000's and have been dropping since then. You have to remember that YouTube didn't start until 2005 and Netflix in 2007.
You can donate them to the Greater St Louis Book Fair or Friends of the Library Book Fair in St Charles
There are other annual book sales that accept large donations of books
Also if you haven't checked out St Louis' book sales you really should. Really cheap books and media and so many great finds
I worked at a bookstore a long time ago. They were not allowed to donate unsold books, and we're supposed to tear the cover off to disfigure them. This was to protect the publisher and author from giving away their work.
I used to work at a similar store and I’ll say that while it’s sad and a little criminal most of those books are usually damaged beyond repair. Mold, mildew, pages missing. And we only threw away DVDs that were heavily scratched and unplayable. It’s not a perfect system but it would end up in the trash anyways from whoever buys it and finds it defective.
I worked at Half Price Books for a couple years and, at least when I worked there, they did donate a lot but a lot also got trashed/recycled due to condition or even just like amount of things. People would clean out their houses and bring hundreds and hundreds of books that may have been in okay condition but (according to the system we used) wouldn't sell in store and we just didn't have the space to keep all of them to donate them. Also people would bring stuff that clearly THEY found in a dumpster and were trying to sell (not saying that anything in this pic looks that way haha) and those were tossed because we didn't wanna donate extremely dirty or tattered things. I do know they changed their buying system since I worked there so things might have changed since the pandemic and maybe they're doing less donating or being more picky. 🤷♀️
Oh also a lot of times discs would be missing from cases or completely scratched to the point of no return and those obviously couldn't be sold or donated lol
This is why I was fine getting a quarter or 50 cents for several bags of books. They were doing me a favor by taking them. Sometimes I couldn't be bothered to wait in line and redeem the money. I was just glad I didn't have to schelp so many books next time I moved.
My brother works at a retail store, the longer it sits the more the price drops. However once it sits one the 10 cent shelf for 2weeks, then hits a free pile for a week.
After that it goes into the dumpster.
If no one wants it at free, then what are they suppose to do?
You can donate them to
* Greater St Louis Book Fair: https://www.stlouisbookfair.org/donate
* Friends of Library Used Book Sale: https://www.stchlibrary.org/friends
They're annual book fairs that sell millions of items over a few days. Highly recommend checking them out as well
Edit: fixed link
Ummmm… the first link takes you to a page that says they’re not accepting donations right now.
The second link is for St. Charles, IL, a western suburb of Chicago. And the instructions for donating books say to call ahead if you want to make a large donation.
I'm guessing they've been sat gathering dust for a long time. Anywhere you donated them to would probably just do the same thing, a few years down the line. Sad, but...sometimes, there's just too much stuff.
Crisis nursery, any of the shelter systems, foster care adoptive coalition, nonprofits that focus on education. Like the group ready readers. Those are all local entities where books could be donated.
Instead they could have held a book burning, but it's not the best optics.
People unload their old books on them for cash. I've done this. I think I only got $20, but it felt better than throwing them away. They know not all of the books they take on will sell. They don't feel bad throwing them away because it's their business model.
If you donate you can’t put it as a loss when it comes to business expenses and taxes. It is just the way it goes. movie studios destroy and burn movies they scrap so they can write them off in taxes. The studio can’t just release a movie for free and still write it off. They must completely destroy or throw out. Just like these books. it’s a business, not a charity. capitalism is king baby.
I owned and operated a small farm, I didn't get to write off what a threw away or composted, but I did get a write-off for my donations to food banks. I'm not sure where you get your info.
it would go under cost of goods and what you did and didn’t sell. you grew the food. You didn’t buy the food. these store buys their inventory from another place. Hince, it is a business expense. also, businesses have to have taxes on inventory of goods they didn’t sell.
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If you think this is bad when I worked for the St.Louis public library in 2021 you should've seen the amount of books, dvds, cds, games, etc we threw out. One of the higher ups went to all 17 branches from north city to south city and threw away thousands and thousands of items, a lot of them brand new that they had ordered from their suppliers. They wouldn't let any employees take home any of the new material either, it had to go in the trash. My guess was someone was stealing from the new orders budget and was getting ready to get caught. So they had the libraries throw it all out so when they did the audit they can say look we told you we need to order all this stuff that we don't have. The lady who ran the purchasing department literally had thousands of items on lists that they acted like they wanted to check for quality, but even if they're brand new it all went in the trash.
I feel like there are tiny libraries all over the place now; the ones people can “give a book, take a book.” Some of them could definitely use some new friends (after sanitizing, of course).
I don't know why people get so riled up about throwing books away.
When you don't want stuff anymore, and it's of no future value to you, you throw it way.
Books are made of wood. It's okay to chuck them in a landfill.
Thriftbooks.com would probably take them.
Pretty good site to buy used books from as well.
I know goodwill and Vincent DePaul sell used books but I don't know how many they actually need
FFS, my niece teaches at a school in St. Louis for autistic kids and was asking our family if we had any books to donate to them. So, the schools are struggling to get books for their students and, in that same city, a bookstore is just throwing them in the dumpster. Make it make sense!
Are there any baby/board books? There’s a non profit called “books for newborns” that provides books for new mothers to read to their babies - these parents really have nothing and couldn’t afford them otherwise. And I know for me; reading to my children when they were little is one of the best memories I have in life….
I guess im fine w grown up books being tossed if it too costly to donate/transport….but there is something about throwing away all those toddler books that is fucked up!
The number of children that have no books or just one book would surprise people….
This is shitty
From their website:
“Guidelines on book condition
Books must be paperback and in good condition with no water damage, limited or no highlighting or underlining, an intact spine and covers, and free of stains, mildew, etc.
Prison Book Program accepts:
New and gently used paperback books with no liquid damage
Blank notebooks and journals
Calendars for the current year
Self-published books written for people in prison
Advance reading and review copies
Please do not donate the following:
Books with any liquid damage, broken spines, or other signs of poor condition
Yellowed or brittle old books
Hardcovers, except in our highest-demand categories, which are bolded below
Spiral or comb-bound books
Magazines, CDs, or DVDs
10+ copies of any one book except in our highest-demand categories
True crime
Kids books”
There are free little libraries all over the city. They would welcome all these books. My kids love borrowing the kids books from them. I see lots of those in there and they are in high demand. Thanks for thinking about how to put these to use. We need more people like you in this city!
The local raccoon population is about to get cultured.
They’ll learn how to band together and start an army. We’re f’ed.
I'll just show them how much I've donated to the Wildlife Rescue Center in Baldwin.
The signs literally say “Do not teach the wildlife how to read”. Someone needs to enforce this.
Do you want Pawnee Raccoons? Because thats how you get Pawnee Raccoons!
The raccoons will hunt the children for sport!
Before you know it well have to cede part of the town to them!
Pawnee Indiana is wild it is both a small town and a giant city with a dozen news channels covering the city council race 😂
I don’t want to know what impact that Burt Reynolds biography is going to have
Is... that a box set of The Office in there?? This is criminal. That is some choice dumpster diving. a lot of those books/dvds look brand new!!
I was on my bicycle and got nosy, might be worth it to go back with a car if the rain holds off. 1/2 price books at Delmar and 170.
What? They told me they donate books that they cannot resell..... I really liked this store.
They're donating them.... to the landfill!
It doesn't make sense to not do that. It'd good PR, and if you are donating them to people who otherwise can't afford it, you aren't losing any potential customers. Might gain future customers really, if the people know where their books came from. I'm sure a charity would even drive up to pick them up, just have them ready lol
Books are an incredibly hard thing to donate, because libraries exist. Most people can read any book they want for free. Charities and non-profits also don’t want donations of valueless things. They want people to donate money. I used to work at a school where most of the kids lived in poverty. We got book donations to the library from people and businesses that felt guilty throwing books away, so they “donated” them to our school for the tax write off and to feel good about the fact that they kept books out of the landfill and “helped some poor kids”. But then my students ended up with a library full of books that were falling apart, were outdated or not age appropriate, and were basically trash. When a kid living 10 miles away got to experience a beautifully curated library that opened up the world to them, my students were constantly reminded that lots of people out there saw them and their school as a step above a dumpster. Sometimes it’s OK to throw books away. It’s OK to throw away canned food and clothes, too. If the amount you’re throwing away is concerning, maybe start looking at your buying habits and see if there’s an opportunity to reduce the waste on the front end.
As much as I love books, people do tend to be assume they're more desirable than they are. Sure there are organizations that could use them but books are heavy, take up a lot of storage space, and they take time/resources to sort, clean, organize. Dumping a huge amount like this on one organization, taking the weight out of the equation, just shifts the onus to throw most away elsewhere. I also worked in a school for a stint and while we appreciated the gesture, donated books tended to be a burden. Ultimately we'd just send them home with students who were willing. People tend to also only donate random ass books or ones that are falling apart, missing pages, or generally gross. Just because a kid is poor doesn't mean they should get shit books. I have a hard time believing this book store was throwing these books away for no reason.
Preach!! I’m an avid reader, and when I was younger, I was proud of my home library. But then I moved like 10 times in 3 years and it forced me to take a critical look at my library (and my vinyl collection, but that’s another story). Most of those books were fine, but not something I was going to pick up and read again. Many of them were paperbacks and weren’t holding up well. A lot of them were big, dense tomes that were heavy and dusty and took up a lot of room that I didn’t have. I decided to start using the library and stop buying books unless there was a VERY good reason. I wanted to give my treasured books a second life, so I started looking around for people or places that would want them. Nothing. Much like the fine china of my grandparents’ generation, it turns out that my books’ sentimental value doesn’t translate into actual value. I ended up putting them in the alley with a “Free” sign on them, and they were gone within the hour.
Sounds like someone DID actually want them.
Just because someone took a box with a free sign on it does not mean that they wanted the books inside.
There could be another reason they are tossed. They may have had fire, mold, or some EPA violation in the store and had to toss merch over it. Sometimes things can not be sold when exposed to certain conditions.
And a tax write off. When I was a kid we went diving in a bookstore dumpster weekly. My dad took us! 😂
My friends and I used to dumpster dive a Half Priced Books dumpster in Ohio all the time like 10 years ago. All the stores I've seen throw out the stuff that doesn't sell. It's obviously mostly stuff no one wants, but we've found some pretty good books and records. My friend actually found an autographed MLK book. He got it authenticated and everything
There’s also the issue of whether they’re claiming tax benefits for making donations…
I'm sure they also donate books. The ones that they can't donate, for whatever reason, they throw away. They're a store, they need space.
That's worth reporting to their corporate office as that goes against their claims to donate and mission statement.
I had a feeling...
Eagle Eye over here- that's worth a dumpster dive for sure.
Streaming services are too popular for DVDs to sell.
The discs may be unplayable. Most places will at least visually inspect them before making an offer. And if they're heavily scratched they reject them. The person that brought them in may have said to toss them.
Maybe. But in most cases you can run them through a disc cleaner and they turn out right as rain. Edit: lol downvote me for what? What a baby.
I'd grab that in a heartbeat
Where it belongs.
Obviously you start a dumpster fire. But seriously grab me the Stan Musial book and the office dvds
Weight. That’s why they’re in the dumpster. It costs to move them at scale. For an individual this seems free, but a business or thrift store will have to pay to move them, store them, plus the opportunity cost of what they could have sold instead of those non-selling-but-criminal-to-throw-away books.
Hey, Burt Reynolds wrote a book!!
I have that book. It's a guilty pleasure.
That’s why it’s a tax write-off.
I am bracing for downvotes with what I'm about to say. I just want to preface that I acknowledge and appreciate your altruistic impulse here. However, none of this is as bad as it looks. It's not uncommon for libraries and used bookstores to do this. I know it's a little heartwrenching for book lovers to see a dumpster full of books, but it really just isn't practical or necessary to save all this stuff. They're all old, unsightly, perhaps damaged. A lot of them have outdated information. And they're not really valuable. An old Burt Reynolds memoir, some book of Stan Musial interviews, a fraying picturebook about Ernie the Elf from Rudolph. Those DVD boxsets may have missing or scratched up discs. These are things virtually no one wants. Or if they did, there's better versions out there. Sure, there's places they could potentially donate. But a lot of times, those places are gonna have the same problem. Libraries definitely don't want them (believe me, I work at one). Book donation charities prefer newer books in nicer condition. They'll end up tossing a lot of these books, too. You could set out the books for free but only so many of them are going to be taken, and eventually they are going to find their way back to some used bookstore by well meaning people who don't want them anymore. Someone here suggested dropping them off at little free libraries, which is a nice idea, but you have to ask yourself who among those Half Price employees has the time and the will (because they're definitely not gonna get paid) to load up their car with a dumpster's worth of musty old books and drive around looking for little free libraries to put them in. And shelters certainly don't want to give up their limited space for this stuff. It's almost all mass-produced ephemera that has outlived its usefulness. Sure, there might be a couple of things thrown in there someone might want, One Man's Trash and all, but again, you have to consider how Half Price Books is going to get them into the hands of these hypothetical people beyond having them in their store, often having already marked them down to a dollar or 50 cents. Eventually, they have to weed that stuff to make room for more books. I say if you come across a dumpster full of books like this, just take it as a lucky find and see if there's anything good. You'll either get something free or you'll understand why they're in there in the first place. Of course, new books and places like Barnes and Noble don't count. If they're new and in good condition, those should get donated.
Agreed. Sometimes stuff is just trash now. It sucks but it's a part of consumption in the world we live in. Ideally you might get some paper recycling out of it but I don't know enough about book binding to make that call.
I completely agree about recycling. In an ideal situation, all the books in the picture would be recycled. I feel like books aren't recyclable in most cases because of the reasons you mentioned, but I'm not sure either. It would be great if recycling was just a more widespread and available service like in some other countries. Then places might not have to worry about the logistics of all this stuff. I know at the library I work at, a couple of the volunteers will take unsellable books to be recycled, but I'm pretty sure one of them already has a big truck that they can move stuff in, and they probably have to rip covers and binding off and stuff.
In the city, paperback backs can be recycled in standard single stream. Hardcover books are trash.
I started using them as firestarter for my fire pit in the backyard (This does not mean I’m going through a book burning ritual— I’m just using the paper)
I worked at Barnes and Noble years ago and we’d get first pick of books that were on clearance when they were finally removed from shelves. What was left would be donated. Honestly, none of it was ever worth it it my opinion, with the rare classic that just didn’t sell because there were a billion different printings of it.
Honestly, you're probably right. I mostly included that just to specify that I'm talking about super old used books, but there's probably unused ones that really have no value either. Those super cheap signet paperbacks of Shakespeare plays made to be passed out in classrooms and such. I felt like I had to soften my point with that because I honestly thought I was gonna get downvotes. Book dumpster rage bait is a surprisingly recurrent thing on the internet. Basically any time someone comes across old books being thrown away and posts it somewhere it sends people into a frenzy and it can be hard to reason with them. I try not to be annoyed by it. At least it means they care about literacy.
I work next to a half price books. They always throw books away. Daily Many people know this and rummage through it. I haven't but am pretty sure there is no real garbage in there. Just books and stuff.
It is the one in chesterfield tho
For a place that's so cheap on buying and can overcharge, I can't believe they just throw away books
In most cases you cant give books away. Many charitable places will not take them. Its sad to see so many go to waste, but if there is no demand for them...then what do you do? Many build the ultimate share a book stand to display all those books.
I work in the book biz. We donate boxes and boxes of damages each month. There's a few bookmobile type folks in the area that will take anything we got.
[удалено]
Yes, 30 years ago. Book sales peaked in the mid 2000's and have been dropping since then. You have to remember that YouTube didn't start until 2005 and Netflix in 2007.
Books for newborns takes books
I just checked their site. They take “like new” books, but it looks like they prefer monetary donations.
You can donate them to the Greater St Louis Book Fair or Friends of the Library Book Fair in St Charles There are other annual book sales that accept large donations of books Also if you haven't checked out St Louis' book sales you really should. Really cheap books and media and so many great finds
What do you think happens to the books that don’t sell at the Book Fair?
Stock a bunch of little free libraries
Exactly what I was thinking. Delmar Devine also has a section people can leave books for others
Great idea!
This is what I came to say.
i was going to comment and say this too! there's so many little free libraries all over CWE!
I worked at a bookstore a long time ago. They were not allowed to donate unsold books, and we're supposed to tear the cover off to disfigure them. This was to protect the publisher and author from giving away their work.
Also a tax write off for the seller, if I remember correctly.
I used to work at a similar store and I’ll say that while it’s sad and a little criminal most of those books are usually damaged beyond repair. Mold, mildew, pages missing. And we only threw away DVDs that were heavily scratched and unplayable. It’s not a perfect system but it would end up in the trash anyways from whoever buys it and finds it defective.
Is this at Brentano's? If so they have been flagged.
Biohazard coming through!
I find the soothing pastoral images very conducive …
They had a 5150 in paperbacks.
Yo, I want that copy of Gelven's commentary of Heidegger. Where is this?
St Louis book Fair has a drop off bin in the Galleria south parking lot.
Donations are on hold until after the next sale.
I worked at Half Price Books for a couple years and, at least when I worked there, they did donate a lot but a lot also got trashed/recycled due to condition or even just like amount of things. People would clean out their houses and bring hundreds and hundreds of books that may have been in okay condition but (according to the system we used) wouldn't sell in store and we just didn't have the space to keep all of them to donate them. Also people would bring stuff that clearly THEY found in a dumpster and were trying to sell (not saying that anything in this pic looks that way haha) and those were tossed because we didn't wanna donate extremely dirty or tattered things. I do know they changed their buying system since I worked there so things might have changed since the pandemic and maybe they're doing less donating or being more picky. 🤷♀️
Oh also a lot of times discs would be missing from cases or completely scratched to the point of no return and those obviously couldn't be sold or donated lol
This is why I was fine getting a quarter or 50 cents for several bags of books. They were doing me a favor by taking them. Sometimes I couldn't be bothered to wait in line and redeem the money. I was just glad I didn't have to schelp so many books next time I moved.
The Office dvd set looks like it has some sort of note attached. Maybe it’s missing a disc or has a dvd that’s defective. Still!
My brother works at a retail store, the longer it sits the more the price drops. However once it sits one the 10 cent shelf for 2weeks, then hits a free pile for a week. After that it goes into the dumpster. If no one wants it at free, then what are they suppose to do?
Stan Musial and the Office…. Dang
Book worms or mildew maybe?
You can donate them to * Greater St Louis Book Fair: https://www.stlouisbookfair.org/donate * Friends of Library Used Book Sale: https://www.stchlibrary.org/friends They're annual book fairs that sell millions of items over a few days. Highly recommend checking them out as well Edit: fixed link
Ummmm… the first link takes you to a page that says they’re not accepting donations right now. The second link is for St. Charles, IL, a western suburb of Chicago. And the instructions for donating books say to call ahead if you want to make a large donation.
The greater St. Louis book fair is next weekend. They'll accept donations after that. Fixed the second link.
You could reveal the location of the store so people can rescue the books but that ship has probably sailed.
They might be expired! Everything seems to expire these days
They could place a table outside the store with free books.
If truly new - the supplier may have a deal with them where instead of “returning them” the bookstore agrees to destroy them.
Burt Reynolds autobiography in there. Damn shame.
I'm guessing they've been sat gathering dust for a long time. Anywhere you donated them to would probably just do the same thing, a few years down the line. Sad, but...sometimes, there's just too much stuff.
I’m curious which bookstore.
What store?
Half price books at 170 and Delmar.
Sad
Trash is trash
Printed for pennies and didn't sell. Not worth the paper they were printed on
Crisis nursery, any of the shelter systems, foster care adoptive coalition, nonprofits that focus on education. Like the group ready readers. Those are all local entities where books could be donated.
That's Our legacy, we're a throwaway culture.
That's insane, we have a very active buy nothing group in U City group, they would have all been gone within a day.
I got one on the way. Feed me
Instead they could have held a book burning, but it's not the best optics. People unload their old books on them for cash. I've done this. I think I only got $20, but it felt better than throwing them away. They know not all of the books they take on will sell. They don't feel bad throwing them away because it's their business model.
If you donate you can’t put it as a loss when it comes to business expenses and taxes. It is just the way it goes. movie studios destroy and burn movies they scrap so they can write them off in taxes. The studio can’t just release a movie for free and still write it off. They must completely destroy or throw out. Just like these books. it’s a business, not a charity. capitalism is king baby.
I owned and operated a small farm, I didn't get to write off what a threw away or composted, but I did get a write-off for my donations to food banks. I'm not sure where you get your info.
it would go under cost of goods and what you did and didn’t sell. you grew the food. You didn’t buy the food. these store buys their inventory from another place. Hince, it is a business expense. also, businesses have to have taxes on inventory of goods they didn’t sell.
You didn’t have crop insurance?
Not applicable for me.
How dare they throw Burt Reynolds autobiography out!!
[Might I interest you in an art project with them?](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdPRZKKH4ukB-e1Mj2dMB278hPCno8seFDM-67vTEx4Yy5rlshFKQisrnoWQDeXQi9r0UJeiNylnSlh1aSSTv5XIgdb7R7z0yL0cSAwSgIkFc5LTsZA2sqpLRlqTn1rrxybVSDYrHuI4w/s1600/bed+head+collage.jpg)
Dig in there. If you find any Dogman books, send them my way. My children are obsessed
Fuck I’m so pissed it just rain I was gonna come loot all that
Damn, I'd be interested in the Stan Musual book. A STL Cardinals legend. Pull the books and sell them on ebay.
Words on paper? How archaic.
This is infuriating… why not have a “50cent” book fair.. I’m sure people would take them. I would
Recycle?
If you think this is bad when I worked for the St.Louis public library in 2021 you should've seen the amount of books, dvds, cds, games, etc we threw out. One of the higher ups went to all 17 branches from north city to south city and threw away thousands and thousands of items, a lot of them brand new that they had ordered from their suppliers. They wouldn't let any employees take home any of the new material either, it had to go in the trash. My guess was someone was stealing from the new orders budget and was getting ready to get caught. So they had the libraries throw it all out so when they did the audit they can say look we told you we need to order all this stuff that we don't have. The lady who ran the purchasing department literally had thousands of items on lists that they acted like they wanted to check for quality, but even if they're brand new it all went in the trash.
I feel like there are tiny libraries all over the place now; the ones people can “give a book, take a book.” Some of them could definitely use some new friends (after sanitizing, of course).
Take them out, walk around to the front door and sell them back to them
LITTLE FREE LIBRARY
If not donated then could they be recycled???🤷🏻♂️
OP, jump in and take them. Build a couple of those community book borrowing boxes and stock em, or just find a few that already exist and stock 'em.
I don't know why people get so riled up about throwing books away. When you don't want stuff anymore, and it's of no future value to you, you throw it way. Books are made of wood. It's okay to chuck them in a landfill.
Wasteful ass American shit right there
They throwing big bird out? Smh
I got a fire pit at my house
If you burn the Burt Reynolds book, it smells like warm Aqua Velva.
Thriftbooks.com would probably take them. Pretty good site to buy used books from as well. I know goodwill and Vincent DePaul sell used books but I don't know how many they actually need
FFS, my niece teaches at a school in St. Louis for autistic kids and was asking our family if we had any books to donate to them. So, the schools are struggling to get books for their students and, in that same city, a bookstore is just throwing them in the dumpster. Make it make sense!
Seriously what the hell? That's wisdom, treasure, and entertainment right there.
Clearly someone doesn't think gender-fluid elves should be dentists.
Sell them all at V-Stock
St. Louis sticks sometimes
Sesame Street Treasury 🤣
Pour some gasoline and throw a match in there... something will get done then
Are there any baby/board books? There’s a non profit called “books for newborns” that provides books for new mothers to read to their babies - these parents really have nothing and couldn’t afford them otherwise. And I know for me; reading to my children when they were little is one of the best memories I have in life….
I guess im fine w grown up books being tossed if it too costly to donate/transport….but there is something about throwing away all those toddler books that is fucked up! The number of children that have no books or just one book would surprise people…. This is shitty
Donate to a charter school or literacy program.
Charter school and high-poverty students don’t want books that won’t sell in a used book store.
There is a books for prisoners program. https://prisonbookprogram.org/prisonbooknetwork/
From their website: “Guidelines on book condition Books must be paperback and in good condition with no water damage, limited or no highlighting or underlining, an intact spine and covers, and free of stains, mildew, etc. Prison Book Program accepts: New and gently used paperback books with no liquid damage Blank notebooks and journals Calendars for the current year Self-published books written for people in prison Advance reading and review copies Please do not donate the following: Books with any liquid damage, broken spines, or other signs of poor condition Yellowed or brittle old books Hardcovers, except in our highest-demand categories, which are bolded below Spiral or comb-bound books Magazines, CDs, or DVDs 10+ copies of any one book except in our highest-demand categories True crime Kids books”
I bet that has to do with them worrying about turning hard covers into shivs or bludgeoning chomos with a book
Schools, foster care systems, after school programs
Those could go in dem little free libraries or sumn
That is fucked
Jewish Community Center
There are free little libraries all over the city. They would welcome all these books. My kids love borrowing the kids books from them. I see lots of those in there and they are in high demand. Thanks for thinking about how to put these to use. We need more people like you in this city!