Salvos see decrease in unwanted dumping AFTER years of disposing of dirty syringes, dead animals and, in one case, finding children living at a donation site, the Salvation Army has welcomed a decrease in unwanted "donations" in NSW. It's estimated that in NSW alone more than 7000 tonnes of unusable donations were cleaned up by the charity in 2013. That's a 10 per cent decrease compared with 2012. Neville Barrett, general manager of The Salvos' Eastern Territories Stores, told AAP a number of measures contributed to the "very significant decrease" in unusable donations. "We have been running campaigns actively, our signage has improved at all of our sites and we're very vigilant and diligent that those sites that are problem areas have CCTV footage," he said. Mr Barrett also said the decision almost a decade ago to remove more than a hundred charity donation bins in NSW, leaving just 16, had helped. "We found all sorts of household refuge ... soiled linen and bags of prawn shells," he said. "At one site we found two children staying in our bins," he said. Nationally, The Salvation Army spends $6 million removing unwanted donations, 75 per cent of which is dumping fees. The NSW Environmental Protection Authority waived $1.38 million of the charity's waste fees last year and a small number of local councils allow the army to dump free of charge. Mr Barrett asked the public to continue their restraint when donating in 2014 and thanked the thousands of donors who donated quality goods over the Christmas period.