"About 60%-80% of donations have to be thrown out at the moment — that’s an expense and we’re struggling," Dunedin Bedding Bank founder Janine Walker said.
Keeping up with the demands of rubbish removal was proving difficult.
It took just two months to completely fill a skip with soiled blankets and now Ms Walker was having to store bedding destined for the tip inside her home.
She would wake up some mornings and find her front doorstep piled high with foul-smelling bedding.
"I can’t get out the door sometimes because there’s just piles of peed-on, bled-on, pooed-on bedding sitting at the doorstep. God, it’s disgusting.
"We’re basically handling bio-waste, it’s not nice at all.
"This bedding is going to human beings — if you would not give it to your kids, don’t give it to us."
The skip was also filled with rubbish and broken furniture now, as people had started to dump their unwanted waste on Ms Walker’s front lawn.
"People just drive past in the middle of the night and throw it all over my fence."
As the weather turns colder, there is higher demand for bedding and sleeping bags.
However, a lot of the resources are now being directed towards dealing with the unusable bedding.
"It’s a very big expense ... the cost is horrendous, and we’re just so low on everything at the moment.
"It’s not fun, but I’m not going to stop doing this.
"We’ll carry on doing this because it’s a big need in the community."
