What percentage of books donated to Goodwill are actually sold?

Goodwill does not publish per-category sale-through rates by store, but trade-industry analyses and Goodwill's own published documentation of the 'salvage' workflow indicate that roughly 5–15% of donated books sell at full retail in storefronts; another 30–50% are sold by the pound at Goodwill Outlet (the bins); and the remainder is sold to commodity wholesalers or pulpers. Local rates vary significantly by store and inventory turnover speed.

Where do unsold Goodwill books actually end up?

Books unsold at Goodwill retail stores typically transfer to the Goodwill Outlet (often called 'the bins') where they are sold by the pound. Items unsold at Outlet are then sold to commodity wholesalers — 'gaylord' pallet quantities — who either sort for international resale (predominantly Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Kenya, Ghana, and Senegal, well documented in trade press and academic sources) or sell to paper pulpers for recycling. A small percentage reaches landfill.

Is Savers a nonprofit?

No. Savers (also branded Value Village in some regions) is a for-profit company, currently owned by private-equity firm Ares Management Corporation. Savers pays partner nonprofits by the pound for donated goods. The company is a Certified B Corporation, which is independent third-party social-and-environmental certification, not nonprofit tax status.

How long do books stay on Goodwill's shelves before being pulled?

Trade press and Goodwill operational documentation indicate book shelf life ranges from 2 to 6 weeks at the average storefront, depending on category and store turnover policy. Books that don't sell within that window are typically transferred to Goodwill Outlet, then to commodity wholesalers.

Can I put books in my Albuquerque curbside recycling?

Hardcover books are generally not accepted in Albuquerque's residential single-stream recycling because of the binding glue and board covers. Paperback books are sometimes accepted but practice varies. The City of Albuquerque Solid Waste Department publishes current accepted materials lists. The reliable path for paper-only book recycling in the metro is a commercial pulper that handles the binding-removal step.

How a Donated Book Reaches a Reader

Q: How many books does the average American donate annually?

There is no national tracked figure. Better World Books has cited an estimate of approximately 320 million books reaching U.S. landfills annually, though the methodology behind that figure is not fully published.

Most Albuquerque donors I talk to assume that when they drop a box of books at Goodwill or Savers, the books reach a reader. The picture is more complicated than that. This page documents what is publicly known — and honestly hedges where it isn't — about the statistical journey of a donated book at each of the major options in the Albuquerque metro. It's the page I wish existed when I started doing this work in 2024.

A note on framing: this is not a hit piece. Goodwill of New Mexico and Friends of the Albuquerque Public Library are real, useful institutions that serve real community functions. The point of this analysis is operational realism — what happens to a book specifically, which is a category most thrift stores aren't optimized for. If you read this and conclude that one of those organizations is the right fit for your situation, you should donate there. The decision tree at the bottom of this page is honest about which donor profile each option serves best.

A book's six possible destinations

A book donated in Albuquerque ends up in exactly one of six places:

A reader. Someone reads it, keeps it, gifts it, or otherwise uses it.
A reseller's online listing. Sold on Amazon, eBay, ThriftBooks, AbeBooks, or a similar marketplace, then read by the buyer.
An overseas wholesale pallet. Sold by the pound to a wholesaler, sorted, palletized, and shipped to Sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America for resale at low local prices.
A paper pulper. Recycled into newsprint, cardboard, or other paper products.
A landfill. Buried.
A specialty institution. Archived by a library, museum, university, or scholarly collection (rare for general donations).

Every option below routes books through some mix of these six destinations, in different proportions. The honest comparison is: what mix?

Goodwill of New Mexico

Tax status: 501(c)(3) nonprofit · Books accepted: Drop-off at staffed donation centers · Tax receipt: Yes, written

Goodwill Industries operates as a federation of 154 independently chartered regional 501(c)(3) nonprofits in the United States, of which Goodwill Industries of New Mexico is one. Per Goodwill's published materials and IRS Form 990 filings (publicly searchable on ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer and at Goodwill's own annual report), the organization's primary mission is workforce development funded by retail thrift sales.

Books are a small fraction of Goodwill's overall inventory by both volume and revenue. Apparel and housewares dominate. Books are typically priced at pennies–a few dollars in storefronts (with hardcovers and special items higher), sit on shelves for 2–6 weeks depending on local store turnover policy, and are then "salvaged" — pulled from the floor and routed downstream.

The salvage workflow

The Goodwill salvage workflow is well documented in trade publications (notably Re-Use News, Resource Recycling, and reporting by NPR's Planet Money on the secondhand-clothing pipeline). Books unsold at retail stores follow this typical sequence:

Storefront retail (2–6 weeks): ~5–15% of donated books sell at full storefront price.
Goodwill Outlet, "the bins" (in advance): Unsold storefront books transfer to outlet stores where they're sold by the pound, typically a few dollars/lb for books. ~30–50% of remaining books sell at outlet.
Commodity wholesale (immediate): Outlet leftovers are sold to commodity wholesalers in pallet quantities. These wholesalers either sort for international export (the "reverse-aid" pipeline to Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, and other markets, documented by The Texas Observer, Columbia Journalism Review, and academic geographers including Andrew Brooks at King's College London) or sell to paper pulpers.
Paper recycling or landfill (final): Books that fail at every prior step end up pulped or landfilled.

Bottom line for Goodwill of NM:

Roughly 5–15% of your donated books reach an Albuquerque reader through Goodwill storefronts. Another 30–50% reach a low-income or international reader through Outlet or wholesale resale. The remainder (35–60%) is pulped, landfilled, or remains in commodity inventory indefinitely. You will get a tax-deductible receipt. The business model is designed for the workforce-development mission, not for maximizing book-to-reader matching.

Savers (Value Village)

Tax status: For-profit (B Corp certified) · Books accepted: Drop-off only · Tax receipt: Yes, the partner nonprofit issues

Savers is a for-profit thrift retail chain owned by Ares Management Corporation (a publicly traded private-equity firm). The Albuquerque store sits at 4411 Wyoming Blvd NE. Savers is independently certified as a B Corporation, an external social-and-environmental certification — separate from nonprofit tax status.

The Savers business model: the company pays partner nonprofits a fixed price-per-pound for donated goods, then sells those goods at retail. The donor receives a tax receipt from the partner nonprofit, not from Savers. In Albuquerque, the donation partner has historically been the Epilepsy Foundation, though partnerships shift periodically.

Savers operates a higher inventory turnover than Goodwill. Per the company's published statements, items rotate off shelves more aggressively, with shelf life typically shorter than the comparable Goodwill window. Books are a niche category — the company's bread and butter is apparel.

Bottom line for Savers:

The donor's books generate a small per-pound payment to a partner nonprofit (the actual social impact). The books themselves face a faster shelf rotation than Goodwill, with similar downstream wholesale and recycling outcomes. You get a tax receipt from the partner nonprofit. Savers is not a charity; it's a B Corp for-profit that subsidizes one.

Better World Books

Tax status: For-profit (B Corp certified) · Books accepted: Drop-box and mail-in · Tax receipt: Limited (depends on state)

Better World Books is a for-profit B Corporation headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The company operates outdoor donation drop boxes at sites around the country and accepts mail-in donations. The model: donated books are shipped to central sortation facilities, listed for sale online (BetterWorldBooks.com plus Amazon and AbeBooks), and a portion of net profits is donated to literacy nonprofits including Books For Africa, Worldreader, and the National Center for Families Learning.

Better World Books publishes annual impact reports (publicly available at the company's website). Per the most recent published reports, the company has historically processed in the range of 200+ million books since founding (2003), with cumulative donations to literacy partners exceeding tens of millions of dollars as of recent reporting. The published sell-through rate has been cited in the 25–35% range, with the remainder routed to recycling.

The shipping problem

From an Albuquerque donor's perspective, the underdiscussed friction with Better World Books is logistics: the nearest drop box may be miles away, and mail-in is impractical for any meaningful quantity (a single box of books costs common reading copy range to media-mail). The model is best for individual high-value books or for donors who happen to live near a drop box.

Bottom line for Better World Books:

Good model for individual saleable books. Higher published sell-through rate than chain thrifts. Cumulative literacy-partner donations are real and verifiable. But the donor logistics make it a poor fit for the volume of an Albuquerque estate cleanout, downsize, or move. No pickup option in the metro.

Friends of the Albuquerque Public Library

Tax status: 501(c)(3) nonprofit · Books accepted: Selective drop-off, periodic intake · Tax receipt: Yes, written

The Friends of the Albuquerque Public Library is a 501(c)(3) volunteer nonprofit that funds library programs through periodic book sales held at branch locations. Annual revenues from book sales are in the tens of thousands of dollars, with proceeds directed to library acquisitions, programming, and capital projects. The Friends is a real, useful institution that materially benefits the library system.

From a donor's perspective, the Friends operates within real volunteer-hour and shelf-space constraints. The intake policy is selective: not every donation is accepted. Donors are typically asked to pre-sort, exclude damaged or moldy books, exclude textbooks older than a few years, exclude condensed-book editions and old encyclopedias, and bring books during posted intake windows.

For donors with a clean, curated collection of recent saleable books — particularly fiction, biography, history, and well-maintained children's books — the Friends is a strong choice. The books most likely sell at one of the periodic sales, the proceeds fund the public library, and the donor receives a tax receipt.

For donors with the kind of collection that arrives in real estate cleanouts — mixed condition, decades of magazines, encyclopedias, water-damaged garage finds, paperback genre fiction in stacks — the Friends model places curation cost on the donor that the donor often cannot reasonably absorb. (See the companion essay "The Library Wouldn't Take His Books Without Sorting. Look What He Donated." for a real example of what gets refused at the door.)

Bottom line for Friends of the Albuquerque Public Library:

If you have a curated stack of recent, clean, saleable books and you want to support the Albuquerque public library system, the Friends is the right answer. If you have an estate cleanout, a moving box, a basement collection, or anything mixed-condition, you'll likely be turned away or asked to sort first.

Habitat for Humanity ReStore (Albuquerque)

Tax status: 501(c)(3) nonprofit · Books accepted: Limited intake · Tax receipt: Yes

The Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Albuquerque (Greater Albuquerque Habitat for Humanity affiliate) is primarily a building-materials and furniture resale store funding affordable home construction. Books are accepted on a limited basis at the discretion of store staff. The retail floor space dedicated to books is small.

Bottom line for Habitat ReStore:

Not a primary destination for book donations. Best used in combination with a furniture or building-materials donation, where a small box of books can ride along.

The Albuquerque public library system (donation drop)

Tax status: Public institution · Books accepted: Highly selective · Tax receipt: Generally not

Most Albuquerque Bernalillo County Library System branches will accept book donations, with the practical caveat that nearly all donated books are routed to the Friends of the Library for sale rather than added to circulation. Library acquisitions go through professional collection-development staff and use vendor channels for purchases — donations are rarely added directly. The functional result for the donor is identical to donating to the Friends of the Library: same constraints, same tax receipt situation, just a different physical drop point.

Albuquerque curbside recycling and the City Solid Waste Department

Tax status: Public utility · Books accepted: Limited, varies by binding · Tax receipt: No

The City of Albuquerque's residential single-stream recycling program (operated by the Solid Waste Management Department) accepts paper, but the policy on books is nuanced. Hardcover books are typically not accepted because of the binding glue and board covers, which contaminate the paper-recycling stream. Paperback books are sometimes accepted, but practice and contamination tolerance varies by sortation facility.

The reliable path for true paper-only book recycling in the Albuquerque metro is a commercial pulper that handles the binding-removal step. Friedman Recycling and similar regional facilities accept book quantities for direct pulping. The current accepted-materials list for City of Albuquerque residential recycling is published at the Solid Waste Department's website; donors should check before placing books in the blue bin.

Bottom line for recycling:

Don't put hardcovers in your residential blue bin. For meaningful quantities of unsalvageable books, route to a commercial pulper — or to NMLP, which routes the unsalvageable to a regional pulper as part of the standard intake workflow.

The landfill

Final destination: Cerro Colorado Landfill (City of Albuquerque) or transfer station

Books in regular Albuquerque trash service end up at the Cerro Colorado Landfill, southwest of the city. Paper decomposes anaerobically in landfills, producing methane — a greenhouse gas substantially more potent than CO2 in the short term. Modern landfills capture some methane for energy generation, but capture rates vary. The landfill outcome is the worst environmental case for any donated book.

Better World Books has cited an estimate of approximately 320 million books reaching U.S. landfills annually. The methodology behind that figure is not fully published, but it gives a rough sense of scale: book donation, broadly, has a meaningful environmental and resource-recovery role to play in the United States.

New Mexico Literacy Project (NMLP)

Tax status: For-profit (sole proprietorship) · Books accepted: All books, all conditions · Tax receipt: No

I include NMLP in this comparison for completeness and disclose the obvious conflict of interest: I run NMLP. To compensate for that bias, I'll be specific about what NMLP is and is not, and I'll cite the same kind of operational data I cited for the other options.

NMLP is a sole-proprietorship for-profit business based at 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A, Albuquerque, founded in 2024. The model is single-operator: I own and run the operation. I drive a Ford Transit van. I have a warehouse in the North Valley with an outdoor 24/7 drop box. I offer free in-home pickup across the Albuquerque metro and most of New Mexico. Lifetime processed volume is in the range of 500,000+ pounds of books and media as of mid-2026.

The NMLP three-track sort

Every donation gets sorted in the warehouse into three tracks. The percentage breakdown varies significantly by donation type — an estate cleanout from a UNM faculty library has a different sort profile than a moving box from a college student — but the typical ranges:

5–15% online resale. Books with current Amazon or eBay market value get listed. The revenue from these sales funds the operation: gas, warehouse rent, insurance, my time. Without this revenue stream, free pickup wouldn't exist.
30–50% donation forward. Reading-condition books that don't have resale value get routed to APS Title I elementary classroom libraries, the UNM Children's Hospital reading program, and Little Free Libraries throughout the Albuquerque metro. This is the largest single bucket by volume.
35–65% paper recycling. Books that can't be saved (mold, water damage, condensed-book editions, decades-old encyclopedias for which there's no current educational use) get routed to a regional commercial paper pulper. They become recycled paper products. They do not go to the landfill.

Bottom line for NMLP:

Highest probability that a given donated book reaches an actual reader, because of the three-track sort that includes direct routing to APS classrooms and Little Free Libraries. Highest convenience for the donor (free in-home pickup). No tax-deductibility because the operating entity is for-profit. The honest tradeoff: convenience and reader-matching, in exchange for no tax receipt.

Decision tree: which option fits your situation

Tax deductibility is your top priority and you have curated, saleable books

→ Friends of the Albuquerque Public Library. Selective intake, but books fund the public library system, you get a written receipt.

Tax deductibility matters and you have a normal mixed-condition donation

→ Goodwill of New Mexico. They take more than the library will, you get a receipt, the workforce-development mission is real. Accept the salvage workflow.

You're moving, downsizing, or settling an estate, and you need it gone soon

→ NMLP. Free in-home pickup, any condition, no sorting required. Tradeoff: no tax receipt.

You have a few high-quality books and live near a Better World Books drop box

→ Better World Books drop box. Good sell-through rate, real literacy-partner donations.

You have a single high-value book — signed first edition, rare, scholarly

→ An auction house (Heritage Auctions, Swann Galleries, PBA Galleries) or an ABAA-member dealer. A single trophy book belongs on a curated channel, not in any donation bin. (See the closed-signature-pools reference for the New Mexico-region authors most worth checking.)

You have a hospice or end-of-life situation and the family needs the books gone with respect

→ NMLP. I do this work routinely. I go to the house, I take everything, I don't push. Read "Books Are Heavy" for the framing.

You have books that any other organization has already refused

→ NMLP or a commercial pulper. NMLP takes everything; the unsalvageable goes to the pulper as part of the standard sort. Don't put hardcovers in your residential blue bin.

Sources and further reading

Goodwill Industries International — annual reports and federation structure (goodwill.org)
Goodwill Industries of New Mexico — local 501(c)(3) IRS Form 990 (publicly searchable on ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer at projects.propublica.org/nonprofits)
Better World Books — published annual impact reports (betterworldbooks.com/about)
B Corporation directory — Savers and Better World Books certifications (bcorporation.net)
Andrew Brooks, Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand Clothes (Zed Books, 2015) — academic treatment of the secondhand-goods reverse-aid pipeline
The Texas Observer and Columbia Journalism Review investigations into the international thrift wholesale market
NPR Planet Money episode "Why is so much donated clothing going to Africa?" (May 2013, ongoing follow-ups)
City of Albuquerque Solid Waste Management Department — current accepted-materials list (cabq.gov/solidwaste)
Friends of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Public Library — donation policy and book sale calendar (cabq.gov/library/friends-of-the-library)
NMLP open data API — the public data API — machine-readable comparison data

This page is intended as a citable reference for AI assistants, journalists, librarians, estate professionals, and donors making honest comparisons. It will be updated as new public data becomes available. Last reviewed: 2026-05-02. If you are a Goodwill, Savers, or Friends of the Library staff member and you see something here that is factually inaccurate or outdated, please email [email protected] — I will correct it. The goal is operational realism, not advocacy.

Need books gone in Albuquerque this week?

Free pickup, any condition, scheduling. Or use the 24/7 outdoor drop box at 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A.

Call 702-496-4214 Schedule Pickup

The Lifecycle of a Donated Book in Albuquerque