Charity shop depreciation of fixtures (clothing racks, bookshelves, counters, etc.), operating costs (maintenance, municipal service fees, electricity, heat, telephone, limited advertising) and the building lease or mortgage. Charity shops may also be referred to as thrift stores (in the United States and Canada), hospice shops, resale shops (a term that in the United States also covers consignment shops), and opportunity (or op) shops (in Australia and New Zealand). One of the earliest charity shops was set up by the Wolverhampton Society for the Blind (now called the Beacon Centre for the Blind) in 1899 to sell goods made by blind people to
Charity shop cutlery and ornaments). Some shops specialise in certain areas, like vintage clothing, furniture, electrical items, or records. Almost all charity shops sell on their unsold textiles (i.e. unfashionable, stained or damaged fabric) to textile processors. Each charity shop saves an average of 40 tonnes of textiles every year, by selling them in the shop, or passing them on to these textile merchants for recycling or reuse. This grosses to around 363,000 tonnes across all charity shops in the UK; based on 2010 landfill tax value at £48 per tonne, the value of textiles reused or passed for recycling by charity