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

As you know we have been selling a bit of stuff on ebay since the start of this 365lessthings challenge. I have mentioned before how I hate wasting our ebay earnings on costly packaging so I do my best to recycle otherwise unwanted resources to make my own thrifty packaging.

After telling a friend of mine how well I had been doing recently selling snow gear on ebay she asked if I would sell some snow gear for her. During this exercise I took some photos to show you the process of creating my thrifty packaging.

I used a box from a piece of furniture from the store I work at. I cut out T-shaped blanks and then folded them into the box shapes I needed.  I usually take an educated guess as to the size to cut. I bend the cardboard over the edge of my desk to get nice straight folds. I use glue to set the side seam and clamp together with bulldog clips to dry then use packing tape to hold it all together. I usually wrap these boxes in inside-out gift wrap as I have a supply I don’t use much due to the fact that I prefer to give non-clutter  gifts to friend and relatives these days.

These boxes were used to pack ski goggles. My items always arrive in good order and condition and I often get feedback comments on how well my items are packaged. Tonight my husband and I used an old moving box to wrap 4 packages of old records that he has just sold on ebay and will be shipped off over the next few days.

ITEM 160 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This scanner bed went to be recycled

From when I was quite a young child I was responsible for minor repairs to my own clothing even my school uniforms. This included  mending tasks such as sewing on buttons and stitching up  dropped hems.

My mother was a private dress maker who worked from home and I will always be grateful that she taught me to sew. I don’t use that skill to make clothes for myself or my family anymore but it is a skill that comes in very handy when an item of clothing needs repair.

I read an article this week from a woman who works in a thrift store who was astounded by the amount of clothing that comes through the store simply because people seem to have lost the skills or the will to do minor repairs. Hopefully these items are bought by someone willing to do the repair but at the same time the person who gave up this item of clothing would have gone out to a store buying a new item to take its place creating a supply and demand that the environment is struggling to keep up with.

In an attempt to help rectify this situation in my own small way today I am posting some links showing basic sewing skills and one that offers a large assortment of on-line sewing classes.

• How to sew a button
• How-to-turn-up-trousers
• E Sewing Workshop

You may wonder what this has to do with decluttering. To me decluttering isn’t just about getting stuff out of my house it is about choosing wisely about what you put into your house in the first place and getting the maximum amount of use out of those items. If that requires me to do the odd repair job along the way then it is well worth the effort.

ITEM 144 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Software that sold on eBay for $20

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

Due to our  success on eBay recently you may have noticed that several of my blogs mention a tip or two about selling your clutter this way. I had an interesting question from Carmen which raised a subject I thought was worth  mentioning.

Carmen asked:- “Do you have any advice on shipping? The part I stress the most about is being able to find packaging (e.g. boxes) for the stuff I want to sell on eBay. Consequently, I haven’t sold much.”

What I say to this is       RECYCLE     RECYCLE     RECYCLE

Buy the time you have sold the item on eBay you have already paid insertion fees and possibly PayPal fees so you don’t want to have to part with any more of your hard earned profit on having to buy packaging.

I work in retail, selling furniture and decor accessories so I have access to an endless supple of boxes and packaging supplies that would otherwise end up in the recycling. So I would suggest go to a retail outlet near where you live and just ask if they would save you some boxes in various sizes. if you live in America and there is a Joanns craft store near you they are a perfect target as they get one shipment a week from the main warehouse find out what day that shipment comes in and you will have hundreds of boxes to choose from every week. I alter boxes to fit my needs and use old gift wrap (in side out) to wrap them in.

We also save boxes from items we buy if we think they will come in handy for this purpose although I wouldn’t encourage doing this too much as that will just make more clutter around your house. Where feasible we flatten the boxes so they take up minimal room.

If all else fails you might just have to visit the post office or a packaging store to find a box to suit your needs.

ITEM 138 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This ski mask made $56.00 on eBay

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

In Australia some local councils schedule Bulk Waste Collection days throughout the year so that people can get rid of those larger rubbish items around their homes that won’t fit in the garbage bins. This is a free service offered twice a year in each neighbourhood.

We receive a flyer in our mailboxes about a month in advance announcing which weekend has been allotted for our neighbourhood to put out our items for collection. This gives us enough time to choose and prepare the items we want to get rid of. Then on our allotted weekend we haul our rubbish out onto the curbbside to be collected the following week.

Quite often second hand dealers and other people will come by and take items they want from the curbside before the collection takes place. It is heartwarming to think that some of it will be recycled rather than trashed. I actually picked up a piano stool one day to use as a lamp table I was then able to donate a larger coffee table that I really didn’t have the space for.

We will be taking advantage of one of these collection services this weekend. I have an old broken garden umbrella and a rusted old porch swing that are ready for the trash. I am most grateful for this service as it is not easy to get items of this size to the rubbish tip and when you do they charge you to drop them off.

ITEM 126 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This is my dimantled porch swing,one of the two items being picked up on Bulk Waste Collection Day

Think about it for a minute, all the stuff in your home that you thought you needed at one point or another and never used to its potential (AKA Clutter)  is likely to become landfill prematurely  if you don’t pass it on now to a good home where it will no doubt at least fulfill another person’s needs for a period of time before either being used to it’s true potential or get passed on again until it does.

I was so please with all my eBay sales last week not only because they put a little bit of cash back into my pocket but also the items I sold are now being used by someone else. There are two benefits to this 1.) the items are not going to waste 2.) the people who bought them are not contributing to landfill or production pollution by having to buy these items new.

While reading through the posts at Sanity In Simplicity I came across a link to a thought provoking video (The Story of Stuff) which is worth a look if you want to scare yourself into recycling what you no longer use and reducing what you buy in the future.

ITEM 130 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I received $30.00 for these three items on eBay, not my best sale but they have now gone to a new home where they will be reused and that is the most rewarding result of this exercise.

Today I just wanted to point out that just below the photo for each days Post there is a tiny word “comments”, if you click on that you have the opportunity to leave feedback,  share your stories or even mention an area of decluttering you might like help with.

I would love to hear from you and appreciate your tips and views.

Yesterday I had a comment from Janetta who has been inspired to start decluttering again. She is even reducing by  a bag of things some days because they are only small items.  As I have said before “Every Little Thing Counts” whether alone or by the bag.

Below is a list of small thing that I used today to make a Reusable Car Bingo Game for my niece and nephews.

• 2 Laptop Screen Protectors
• 2 sheets of chipboard
• 3 Sheets of coloured paper
• 4 whiteboard markers
• Screen clean sachet
• Plastic Box

These were all excess items and resources taking up space in our office/craft room. The screen protectors were from a laptop we no longer have. The whiteboard markers were from a stockpile no doubt at risk of going dry and useless in the drawer waiting to be used.

I am sure the kids will be thrilled with the result and I am happy to have purged yet a few more things.

Here is the photo of the Bingo Game I made for the kids.

While looking in the linen closet to determine whether there were any old towels I could throw away my attention was drawn to some rolls of gift wrap and a box of gift bags. Which got me thinking about the chest full of other gift wrap paraphernalia in the closet down stairs

Now you may think what I am about to suggest is strange but I will explain my thinking as we go along.

I rarely buy gifts (This is strange to most people). I live a long way from most of my family, postage costs are ridiculous and they all can pretty much afford to buy anything they would want anyway, as can I.

Not to mention the fact that I am embarking on this lifestyle change of de-materialising and not bowing to the continual bombardment of the retail industry insisting my life would be so much richer with this product or that.

So I pulled the chest out of the closet and started to sort out the gift bows that have already been recycled several time during past Christmases and threw away all the ones that looked like they had been recycled too many time already. This reduced the number enough so that I could empty the chest into a small  drawer in the guest bedroom.

As we have been selling a number of items on eBay lately and have run out of brown paper to wrap boxes in for mailing I have decided  I will turn the gift wrap inside-out and use the white side for wrapping boxes  the next time I need to mail something. I have plenty of new and used gift bags I can use for any occasion when I might need them in the future.

I transferred my children’s keepsakes into the lovely chest I had emptied therefore eliminating one more box out of the shoe cupboard.

As a result of this exercise I have de-cluttered, recycled, re-designated (I love to live outside the box) and reshuffled creating a little more space.

I would just like you to know that my family and friends understand that gift buying  is not necessary to a loving relationship. My family would prefer I spent my money on the travel to come and visit them and my friends would rather enjoy a day together going to the movies,  having a meal together or something of that nature. I am not a complete scrouge.

Oh! By the way, I am going to a wedding this weekend and the couple, who have been living together for a few years, have the good sense to have a “Wishing Well” so people give money as the gift and they don’t end up with a house full of unneeded clutter.

These are the bows that found their way to the garbage today.