R E C Y C L E         R E C Y C L E

R E C Y C L E

The Word for Today  is so simple yet so important. If you are not using something then it is just taking up space. There are so many ways to RECYCLE your unwanted goods that very little should go to waste.

• RECYCLE by giving things you don’t want to a charity, friends, family or even a casual acquaintance.
• RECYCLE by selling your items on through web sites like ebay or advertise in you local newspaper or through you work Intranet.
• RECYCLE by putting all unwanted items made of cardboard, paper, metal or recyclable plastic in your recycle bin. All those old tax papers, storage boxes, school papers etc fall into this category.
• RECYCLE by sending your old computer components to companies that dismantle, recycle and dispose of this items responsibly.
• RECYCLE by re-purposing an object. I used the fabric out of an old pair of my husbands jeans to make a patchwork calendar holder. My mother-in-law uses old fabrics to make handbags. You know I use old cardboard boxes to make my ebay packaging. An old teapot makes a lovely planter pot. This is just a drop in the bucket of ideas for re-purposing.
• RECYCLE by repairing items rather than throwing them away. Sew on a button, stitch up a hem, replace a hinge, put a new clasp on that old necklace you love, re-paint an object and give it a new lease on life. Take a class and learn a new skill you can use to carry out these tasks with ease. Hardware stores often offer free classes on household repairs and there are no end to the places in your local community where you can learn skills of all kinds.
• RECYCLE by googling. This may sound strange but there is so much you can learn with a little investigation on the Internet. Search for “How to repair…” or “Alternate use for…”  or “local charities” it is that easy.

So when it comes to RECYCLING your clutter the choices are endless so please don’t just send your unwanted items to landfill let someone else get the most out of them if you aren’t.

ITEM 177 OF 365 LESS THINGS

One more for the donation box

Hi to all the  people out there who read my post on a regular basis and to all newcomers as well. Yesterday was my 100th post and I am still very keen to continue. I am enjoying sharing with you all the lessons I am learning along this journey of decluttering and I hope my blog has been a help to you in turn.

To celebrate this auspicious occasion my site has a whole new fresh look. I made that sound so planned but in fact I didn’t know I had a “whole new fresh look” to my blog until I got home from work yesterday to find my husband had been tinkering in my absence. He did a good job though don’t you think. 365lessthings also has a facebook page apparently, I am not sure exactly what to do with that but I am sure I will figure it out.

The photo on my home page is of a car load of stuff I took to a local thrift store earlier on in the process. It was not the first load and won’t be the last. I hope that after the 365 days are over there will be nothing left to declutter but that remains to be seen.

ITEM 164 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another ebay sale for $11.00

This week I used Freecycle for the first time and was delighted with the results. First of all I was amazed that the place I live even had Freecycle and secondly I was pleased that it gives me an outlet for items that would otherwise be difficult to find homes for. Let me explain…

I listed three  items, two if which were a box of baseball cards and a guitar amplifier that doesn’t work. As you can see neither of these items is suitable to send to a charity because they only want stuff in working condition and baseball cards would be a bit obscure to say the least for an Australian thrift shop to off load (baseball isn’t that popular here). I didn’t think these two items would float on ebay either so I put them on Freecycle along with a CD/DVD rack that didn’t sell on ebay.

I was expecting that the CD/DVD rack would be the most popular item but lo and behold the first thing to be claimed was the baseball cards and there was more than one person dare I say excited at the prospect. The amplifier which I listed as “for parts only does not work” was the next item to go and once again more than one person was willing. Then finally the lady who is picking up the baseball cards emailed and asked if she could also have the DVD rack if it was still available.

I am so pleased that I have now an outlet to find new purpose for items that are too good to throw away but not suitable for other methods of disposal. Just because something doesn’t work doesn’t mean it’s parts can’t be salvaged and just because something is a little obscure doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there who would love to have it. I love Freecycle and will utilise it again in the future I am sure.

ITEM 156 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This is the CD/DVD rack that went to a new home today thanks to Freecycle

Ingredients:

1 Kitchen cupboard                                   40 Recipe Books

1 plastic crate                                               1 Pinch of Common Sense

Method:

1. Open the kitchen cupboard where you keep you recipe books.
2. Take all of the recipe books out of the cupboard.
3. Use your common sense to determine whether you actually ever use these books or are ever likely to. Keep in mind that you can Google any recipe you could possible want and or borrow recipe books from the library.
4. Take the plastic crate and load all the books you have determined you don’t need into it.
5. Put the crate into your car and take it to your local charity.
6. Celebrate the space you have just liberated in your kitchen cupboard.

I still have about a dozen books that I want to take a closer look at before adding them to the 365 less things but once again that can wait for another day after all there are still 220 left.

ITEM 145 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Here is the pile of cookbooks that I ruthlessly decluttered and I don’t imagine I will ever miss them.

While going on my morning walk today I was outraged to see some of the stuff people have put out on the street for Bulk Waste Collection Day in our neighbourhood. I would rather not dwell on it at the moment because it put me in a rather negative frame of mind and I am trying to get something positive out of it. I will be sure to explain my outrage in an upcoming post just in case I have tweaked your interest.

Rather than be negative I decided to get on my computer and Google subjects to see how much information I could find on charities and recycling opportunies in my local area.

It was no challenge! Here are the [subjects] I searched for and how successful these searches were.

*I have substituted the name of the town I live in with [my town] because I don’t want to give away to much private information about myself. The links I have added are Australian but I am sure you will similar sites in your country.

• [my town charities] the list was extensive.

• [my town  recycle centre] and among the many options I found this little gem. Recycle Centre
• some well known charities eg. [salvation army] which gave me phone numbers for info and donation pick up hot line and also a search option for where a local drop off is nearest to me.
• [my town computer recycling] amoung others I found a web site Byteback who take care of these types of unwanted items.
• [my town green waste] and again a long list of option in my area for taking care of garden clean up.
• [my town city council] had a whole section dedicated to waste with this little gem, recyclingnearyou.

There is a charge for some of these services but it is better than the alternative of them just going to waste.

So really there is no excuse for throwing away perfectly good items or even broken items for that matter because there are all sorts of ways to re-use and recycle that  you may never have even thought was possible.If people are puting computer parts and desks on the street they obviously must know how to use one so I wish they would just Google their stuff away instead of leaving it out in the rain to be ruined.

I was amused by the irony of a sticker I saw stuck on the side of an old TV on the curbside, it read…

DON’T BE A TOSSER EVERY PIECE OF LITTER IS HARMING THE ENVIRONMENT

My Give Away-Thow Away-Sell count just goes to prove you don’t have to be wasteful.

ITEM 140 OF 365 LESS THINGS

The last of the eBay ski gear auctions this pair make $20.60

Keeping it simple today I thought I might just compile a list of the methods I have used to dispose of the items that I have decluttered.

• Donate to charity
• Give to friends
• Throw in the trash bin
• Bulk Waste Collection (Explained Yesterday)
• Curbside Donation (I will explain this one below)
• Regift
• Sell on eBay
• Re-assign (eg. turning gift wrap into eBay packaging)
• Use up (like excess toiletries products)

Curbside Donation explained: We live on a fairly busy road and I have been known to take large items that I no long require out to the footpath in the hope that someone will take them away. I place a sign saying FREE or PLEASE TAKE ME (being careful not to hold that on my person when walking out there in case they get the wrong idea) on the item and wait and see how long it takes for the item to disappear. My barbecue was a classic example of this method. Prior to 365 less thing I had used this method to get rid of a trampoline, a desk some wooden shelving and some large plastic tubs.

ITEM 126 OF 365 LESS THINGS

The nother Bulk Waste Collection Item

Today I am giving you a tally of what has been thrown away, what has been given away and what has been sold on eBay since the beginning of my new years resolution of 365 less things. There is an upside and a downside to this count though.

The upside is that most of the items I have uncluttered from my home have either been donated to charity, given to friends or sold on eBay. As I have mentioned before the advantage to this is that they have gone to  new homes where they have the chance of being used to their true potential.

The downside is that the reason behind the fact that there has been so little thrown away is because we had a home full of clutter that had not been used to it’s full potential. Which means we should probably not have wasted our money on them in the first place.  I console myself  that some of the items were things my children had needed but grew out of and others were items that had become un-necessary due to the latest change of location but still there must be many things that were just a waste.

I am reasonably happy though that I didn’t have a home full of garbage and that the items that have been thrown away so far wouldn’t even fill a wheely bin.

This is the tally so far

• 21   have been thrown away
• 90  have been donated or given away
• 21   have been sold on eBay at the value of $553.25

In future I will keep a running tally of this break down under the heading Give away – Throw away – Sell under the Pages List in the right side collumn of my blog.

ITEM 132 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Some more scrapbook magazines I tried to sell two of these on eBay without success they have all been donated to charity

I live in a townhouse so I don’t have much to care for in the way of garden or lawn but for what I do have I am endevouring to minimalise the amout of equipment and time required to maintain it.

I only purchase/aquire plants that can survive my neglect, requiring little watering or pampering in any way and hardy enough to cope with the varying climate we can get here at times.

When we first moved into the property we owned a lawn mower and an edge trimmer which seemed a little overkill for a lawn 5m long by 1.5m wide so my husband bought a rotory hand mower and gave the other items to charity.

After using the hand mower a couple of times I decided that was hard work so the next time the gardener that maintains the common areas of the property came to do his work I asked him what he would charge me to trim the edges and cut the lawn in the back of my home. He said he would do it for a carton/slab of beer at Christmas each year. “BARGAIN” deal done.

As a result of exploring options and choosing wisely when adding plants I now have a garden that requires little maintenance or equipment. Today I will send the last of the redundant gardening equipment that has been lurking in the garage to the give-away pile.

I might add we have no intention of ever again living in a propery that has big lawns and gardens so I don’t expect ever to have to replace the gardening equipment that we have purged over that last couple of years

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

If you should accidently write on a whiteboard with perminent marker just scribble over it with the whiteboard marker and it should rub right off.

I once came across and article in a scrapbook magazine with a survey to determine whether the reader was a scrapbooker or a collector of scrapbook supplies. This may seem amusing to some but there is an fine edge that one can easily slip over when at the height of a crafting obsession.

This  applies to all crafts and hobbies, woodworking, quilting, knitting, beading, model making… the list goes on.  So beware and try to put a limit on the amount of supplies you allow yourself to amass. It is very easy to get carried away.

Tastes change, trends change and life changes and one day you may get board with the current hobby, become unable to continue the craft for physical reasons or change your lifestyle and be unable to accommodate your hobby. Then you are left with a huge collection of supplies to get rid of and the guilt trip that goes along with that because of the amount of  money you have spent on something you no longer obsess over.

For Example, I used to do a lot of scrapbooking and papercrafting and although I still use my supplies I don’t use them nearly as much as I once did and they take up a lot of  space in my craft room and I am now more interested in beaded jewellery making.

I am slowly using up my supplies but if you think you won’t, don’t despair, try selling them on eBay, or to a friend who still enjoys the hobby or there is sure to be a craft group around who would be happy to take them off you hands.

Today’s item is a old set of drill bits that belonged to my husband’s grandfather. He sold them on eBay to someone who will get new joy out of them I hope.

I have discovered that uncluttering is the cure for resorting to retail therapy.

How often do we use retail therapy to make up for times when we feel down, disappointed, bored and other conditions of the mind. What does this kind of therapy do to improve the situation? Usually it just adds more problems like credit card debt, guilt and regret.

It has amazed me how quickly I formed a dislike to shopping once I committed myself to my 365 day resolution to de-clutter my home.

Now when I get spare time I don’t get bored, I use that time to find the next thing I am going to get rid of or try to come up with a subject for my next Post. This leads to a satisfaction that I am using my time constructively and am less likely to feel down. I generally feel better about myself and my bank account is looking healthier too. Not to mention the satisfaction that I am helping others by donating items to charity.

Another item that has not been used for so long I can’t even remember why we bought it in the first place