False teeth and a tiny kitten – people can be so generous

A false leg, a box of human hair and a kitten – these are just some of the unusual items staff at charity shops in Bristol have found in bags full of donations.

In a recent survey of its 48 shops, Bristol charity St Peter's Hospice found a range of bizarre items had found their way into the sorting rooms over the past couple of years.

Items that would never make it on to the shop floor included adult sex toys, a jar of gallstones, used underwear and used disposable nappies.

The Sandy Park branch in Brislington was once given a false leg, the Yatton shop found a modified handgun among donations, and an enema kit was given to staff at the Yate South shop.

An urn of ashes was once left at the Blackboy Hill shop, false teeth were found in a bag in the Kings Chase shop in Kingswood, and a box of human hair turned up in the Henleaze branch.

Also in Henleaze, staff once discovered a kitten had been left on their counter inside a cardboard box.

The kitten was found a new home, but most of the rest of the items had to be thrown away.

Area manager Ginny Gooding said: "We are so grateful to all the people who donate to St Peter's Hospice, but we are constantly amazed by some of the things we find in the bags when they get sorted.

"In some ways, finding things like this keeps the job interesting for us and injects a bit of humour.

"Some of the worse things we have is when someone has clearly just cleared the floor of their child's bedroom and we get some toys we can sell, but also hair and dust and biscuits.

"Someone even left a bag full of household waste with us once – I don't know if they just brought in the wrong bag.

"I found a sex toy once, wrapped up in a pac-a-mac bag – which is why we have to be so careful to check through everything that gets brought to us."

Staff at the shops say they would like people to check they are not donating anything that was uncovered in the poll, but that if you are in doubt over an item, donate it anyway.

Ginny said: "We do understand that sometimes it can be painful to go through a bag of a dead relative's effects, which is probably why we end up with things like false teeth.

"And if you are not sure whether your clothes can be re-sold, donate them anyway – even if something is well worn, or ripped we can recycle it and sell it on to our textile recycler to generate extra income, which last year reached £600,000 for the charity."

St Peter's Hospice shops sell on average 35,000 items a week, all of which have donated by the general public.

The shops sell clothes, bric-a-brac, DVDs and CDs as well as other items.