Sydney Trains putting unclaimed lost property to good use
Sydney Trains is working to give unclaimed lost property new life by passing on near-new items to charities in need.
Sydney Trains collects approximately 50,000 lost property items left on trains and at stations each year.
Dedicated staff try extremely hard to reunite passengers with their personal property, but sometimes items go unclaimed for months or even years.
Sydney Trains has established a new partnership with Muru Mittigar, a proud Dharug Aboriginal Social Enterprise in Western Sydney, to donate unclaimed lost property items. Muru Mittigar is passing these items on to its community partner organisations across the state.
So far this year, Sydney Trains has donated: more than 100 bikes, more than 20 scooters, body boards and a selection of clothing, handbags, wallets and sports gear like fishing rods, tennis rackets and balls. A variety of general goods were also donated like, toys, sunglasses, umbrellas as well as household appliances like a rice cooker, electric frying pan, a pedestal fan, a sandwich press and a Soda Stream. Brand new personal items like make-up, perfume, and creams were also included.
Muru Mittigar Executive Officer Wayne Cornish said “These donations mean the world to these families. Bikes give children independence and contribute to their self-worth. The games help families and community connect.
“The donations also allow organisations like ours a way into community and it opens doors for us to help further by opening conversations about other ways we can help.”
Sydney Trains Executive Director of Customer Experience Maureen Clark said, “It is wonderful that these unclaimed items can find new life and new use with families and children across the state.
“Sydney Trains works very hard to reunite passengers with their lost goods. Each week we find between 800 -1200 items which customers have left behind. More than 70 per cent of the items are found and given back within 28 days,” said Ms Clark.
“Typical items include umbrellas, mobile phones and electronic devices. It’s not uncommon for us to receive about 30-40 mobile phones and upwards of 14 sets of wireless headphones a day. On a rainy day we are likely to find more than 50 umbrellas,” said Ms Clark.
Every now and then Sydney Trains also gets some unusual items in our lost property office.
“Some of the more unusual items that have come through the lost property doors include prosthetic limbs, war pins and war medals, snow skis, 10ft long surfboards, a wheelchair, a tent and even letters to a customer from Buckingham and Kensington Palaces," said Ms Clark.
“The network is expansive and where we can, we do not want to see any of the items go to waste.”
Last year, Sydney Trains donated around 4000 pairs of glasses to the Rotary Lions organisation.
Sydney Trains is currently investigating more charity partnerships to donate even more unclaimed lost property items going forward.
Other items which are unclaimed go to auction and Sydney Trains invests any revenue raised at these auctions back into public transport improvements for our passengers.
The auction is currently held once a year and can see about 15,000-20,000 items sold. The most recent auction was held in February, and it raised $35,000.