SUPERMARKETS and other shops are throwing out clothes, toys, shampoos, dog food and other items rather than donating the items to charity.

Cairns charities yesterday labelled the practice "disappointing" and confirmed many of the items could have been used by needy families.

Whitfield shopper Pete Hutton wrote to The Cairns Post after seeing the wasteful practice as a regular visitor to various shopping centres.

Yesterday, he photographed vast quantities of bread, doughnuts and clothing in a bin outside Woolworths at Redlynch.

Chocolate bars, tinned vegetables and other items were also discarded, underneath piles of paper. All the food was still inside the "best before" dates.

Visits to two other supermarkets by The Cairns Post found bins padlocked - a practice Mr Hutton suggested had only started since he wrote to Woolworths a month ago.

Mr Hutton said he once saw three cartons of dog food cans with small dents dumped in a bin outside a Kmart store.

"When you start doing the maths on the number of stores in Cairns and around Australia, it is a monstrous waste," Mr Hutton said.

Woolworths spokesman Luke Schepen said the supermarket did its best to minimise waste but "we can't give it away unless we can guarantee the safety of the product".

He said Woolworths donated 1.2 million kilograms of food and other products to charity Foodbank last year.

"We are always looking at ways we can minimise waste or pass items on to other organisations," he said.

Charities confirmed food donations were problematic, because of health and safety regulations.

But the Salvation Army's Captain Craig Spooner said many of the other items, including the dog food, could have been put to good use.

"If they were new clothes or toys, we could use them and it is a waste to throw them away unless they were damaged and broken," he said.

"When it is things that could be used, it is disappointing."

Lifeline's Cairns general manager Bob Collyer encouraged retailers to donate the items where there were no defects.

"The shops would be better off to move the items to organisations and we could utilise what was useful," he said.

Ozcare spokeswoman Mary-Louise North said all non perishable items could readily be used by families in its crisis accommodation houses.

Kmart could not be contacted for comment.

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