Blood-stained wedding dresses and stuffed animals among the items handed in.
Stuffed owls and a blood-stained wedding dress are among the weirdest items received by the UK’s charity shops, according to staff.
Other shops reported being given dirty bedsheets and a VHS tape marked “The A-Team” which actually contained an episode of Lovejoy.
Another said they had been left “several tins” of octopus brought back from a Spanish holiday, despite not accepting food, while one shop received 30 self-portraits of the same man.
Other strange donations included a sealed box with something rattling inside, which the donor claimed was cursed, and a Monopoly set with real, but out-of-date, banknotes inside.
One donor even handed in a suitcase full of old pornographic magazines.
The findings have been published following a survey of charity shops by waste management firm BusinessWaste.co.uk.
Mark Hill, the company’s spokesman, said: “It's safe to say that some people think charity shops will take any old tat, no matter how damaged or tasteless. Luckily, we're here to take these things off their hands so they can be recycled for disposed of properly.
“A lot of the charity people said they know all about Facebook groups featuring wild charity shop finds, but items that don't make it to the shop floor go right off the scale compared to what appears on social media.
"I'm told that in many cases, the charity has its own reputation to think about. They've strict rules about shoddy goods and electricals, but they've also their own way of doing things when it comes to taste and decency.”
The survey also revealed the items which were most commonly to charity shops.
"It used to be Dan Brown books, but now it's Robbie Williams CDs and Fifty Shades, and all those copycat erotic novels," Mr Hall said. "At one point most shops literally had boxes full of unread Fifty Shades, and books are particularly difficult to recycle because of the glue they use in the spines.
"We heard of one shop that made a very sturdy desk out of several dozen Fifty Shades books and a donated kitchen work top. That's brilliant recycling,"
The biggest problem faced by shops was donations of items that could be hazardous if not disposed of properly, such as car batteries, chemicals, half-used tins of paint and fluorescent strip lights.
Mr hall said: "Think about what you're giving to charity. In the end you end up costing them money for something you should have dealt with yourself.
"Let charity shops get on with what they do best – raising money for good causes. They're not your personal rubbish service.”
