In message , Mary Fisher
writes

"T i m" wrote in message
.. .

...
only to find a volunteer emptying bags of paperbacks into a huge wheeled
bin
but not for recycling but for landfill. When I questioned him about this
he
said it was not worth sorting through the hundreds of paperbacks they
received each week! It seems the same fate awaited hundreds of hardback
books also.

Hmm, that's not right .. the place I use take clothes and if they
aren't considered good enough to pass on *as* clothes they get money
for tham as 'fabric' .. I would have though the same would go for
books .. paper?

We recently had to get rid of a couple of thousands of books - hard backs,
paper backs, all sorts. We cleared the shelves a few years ago, the family
had first pick of them. Then friends. Then we stored them, trying all sorts
of outlets including an overseas charity which pleaded in its advertising
that it wanted *any* book for schools which had none.

They came and took none, all ours were over ten years old. The fact that
there were many children's and adult classics, fiction and non fiction, in
good condition, didn't matter, they were 'out of date'.

In desperation we tried a pulping place in the city. They said they'd
collect them, it would cost us £10. In the end we took them there - after
going through them yet again and hoiking some out. We're now reading fiction
again but there'll come a time when they have to go.

The reason we had to make room was to accommodate the books we acquired
which we DO use. We still have about 3,000 ...

Then there are all the magazines ... not Woman's Own or Hello before anyone
suggests it. When I was a child I loved reading my godfather's bound
collections of C19th Punch. I now have decades of Punch mags from the 1950s
on but no-one seems to want them. It's such a shame.

Much as I'd love them ...

I'm sure I have more junk and books that you


--
geoff