Will Goodwill take old encyclopedias?

Goodwill of New Mexico generally does not accept encyclopedia sets at the intake door. Encyclopedias have near-zero retail demand and take up significant shelf space relative to revenue, so most local Goodwill stores either decline them at intake or accept them and immediately route them to the Goodwill Outlet (the bins) for sale by the pound — and from there typically to a paper pulper or commodity wholesaler.

The same applies to most other thrift channels in the metro: Savers, Friends of the Albuquerque Public Library, Habitat ReStore, and Better World Books all generally reject encyclopedia donations.

The honest path for an encyclopedia set in Albuquerque:

• Donate to NMLP (free pickup, any condition). Unsalvageable copies go to a regional pulper for paper recycling, not landfill.
• Recycle through a commercial paper pulper. Friedman Recycling or similar regional facility accepts book quantities for direct pulping.
• Don't put hardcover encyclopedias in your residential blue bin. Hardcover bindings contaminate the paper-recycling stream — the City of Albuquerque Solid Waste Department's accepted-materials list excludes them.

For the deeper sourced analysis of what happens to donated books at each Albuquerque option, see The Lifecycle of a Donated Book in Albuquerque.