Decluttering Help (how to get rid of certain stuff)

toonaspie

Just a poser
Joined
May 30, 2010
I know there are decluttering threads out there but I feel I need extra help with my attempts at purging. I have this little thing I like to call "landfill guilt" where I try to recycle as much as possible. (I'm getting better at it I swear :).)

Before I go nuts with this, I would like advice on how you handle the following kinds of clutter:
  • old electric wires/headphones - Do you just trash these or are there places that can recycle them?
  • appliances that no longer work - Same question as above
  • torn/unwearable clothes - This one is my biggest stumps cause I feel they can't be donated. Throwing them away feels wasteful but I don't know of any places that recycle just fabric. (I have at least a dozen pairs of jeans with crotch tears in them). There are lots of clothes recycling bins but I dunno if they expect wearable clothes or will accept any fabric, I also have gloves that are missing one, one bedsheet of a former set, etc
  • worn towels and other torn fabric - See above
  • old CDs - Can these go in single stream recycling or is there a special recycling I must do?
  • broken/chipped ceramics - I would love to recycle these if I knew of any places that did recycle them
I was hoping to get some advice as to how to sell some items that might have cash value (as to the best websites etc). Apparently that is against the site rules. So I'm stumped as to what to do. I don't think it's worth the hassle of listing each and every item on Amazon or Ebay (with no guarantee they'll even sell) then go through the trouble of proper shipping (which I end up paying more than the customer does anyway). Plus most of the things I wager are in "used and not very valuable condition" anyway. Have it you found it just easier to just get rid of it all (Goodwill 'em, etc)?

I'm (intending to anyway) really committing myself to this purging/decluttering thing this year. The funny thing about it is that at least 10-20% of the stuff I need to get rid of in my house weren't even my things to begin with. They belonged to various relatives (plus one ex-friend/roommate) who lived in the house before me over the years and just left it there. I really want to get rid of stuff though but it's a constant struggle to have to go through things. Hoarding is in my family blood I guess. Particularly my dad. I have a bunch of old microwaves and vacuums he keeps hoarding and storing in my house that I want gone since I dont even know if they still work (plus they're dirty and I don't want to go through the trouble of restoring them) but as I mentioned above, I hate having to trash electronics/appliances.

This feels like a dumb thread for me to have start. As you can see I'm a newbie to this whole decluttering/purging thing. But thanks anyway.

I will be recording any progress that I make in the 2020 declutter thread. With the amount of stuff I have it wouldn't shock me if I reach +1000 items this year.
 
CDs - can be donated to library "book" sales, or even Salvation Army will try to sell them

Broken china pieces - offer on NextDoor.com or other community Facebook page, some people are looking for old china because they like to use it for mosaics projects.
 
You could check how your county handles trash...unless it is toxic or recyclable, mine burns it and turns it into power, so I feel no guilt. If something is beyond its usable life and not donate-able, I know it's entering the circle of product life here...maybe you'll be surprised and your area does the same...
 
Hey I feel ya! I too hate for things to end up in a landfill. I'm lucky that we have churches in our community that run a little store that lets people come in weekly and get 8 items for free. I donate anything I can there.

For worn out towels and blankets I've seen that vets or animal shelters take those for the animals.

To sell things try your neighborhood facebook page or craigs list. Or you can even give things away on freecycle to keep them out of landfills.

Check if your community has recycle days for old appliances, mine does so that is what I do. Overworn clothes get made into rags or just pitched :-(.

Oh on the old electronic headphones and wires, I don't know does best buy recycle those
 


For appliances that no longer work check a local metal recycler. My inlaws just took their old dishwasher to a recycler. It wasn't a built in, it would get wheeled next to the sink and hooked up to the faucet and the sides were all metal. They got like $15 for it. Not going to get rich but if you have to haul it someplace at least maybe you could get paid for it versus paying someone to take it from you.

As for selling stuff I'm part of a private Facebook group that is just my subdivision. I put the items in that group and I feel relatively safe as their is a vetting process to be able to join my subdivision group. I just sold some electronics on Facebook Marketplace. I don't like strangers coming to my house so when I had a buyer before I told him my address (as I might have met him in public) I checked out his profile. Turned out we have a couple mutual friends and his profile had been active for years so I felt he was pretty safe to give my address to.

eBay is a pain as it is really catered to the buyer. I've only sold stuff on there that has no value to me and can't sell locally. A buyer could basically claim you sent them a box of rocks and eBay is going to side with them and pull the money back from your account. Has never happened to me but I have had a few friends this happened to.
 
Both Best Buy and Apple recycle old electronics. I’m sure both have lists of what they’ll take. There are also outfits that will come and take your old appliances off your hands for free.
The rest I’m not sure but sometimes you have to weigh your quality of life against some things you’re opposed to. Keeping other people’s crap and things like unwearable clothes is going to start dragging you down. Donate what you can and toss the rest.
 
worn towels

animal shelters covet these (old blankets, sheets as well).


old electric wires/headphones

have a bunch of old microwaves and vacuums he keeps hoarding and storing in my house that I want gone since I dont even know if they still work (plus they're dirty and I don't want to go through the trouble of restoring them) but as I mentioned above, I hate having to trash electronics/appliances.


see if where you live has free electronics recycling at businesses, but check before you take-our best buy is on the list but it doesn't mention that they charge to take some items while the staples down the street does not. we had a goodwill near us that would take any and all things electric b/c they resold it by the pound to some company.

for stuff like cds and other odds and ends-do a google search for your area. we have places that collect cd's, lp's, videos-even old 8 tracks for a once a year audio video sale for charity. other places do collections for books, others for 'vintage' clothing (they love leisure suits). google is your friend.
 


Old blankets and towels are helpful to pet rescue and animal shelter organizations. Our Petco has had a bin in the vestibule for collecting them. Not sure if that’s a local thing or not.
 
If you are looking for free ways to get rid of stuff I agree with the others to check with your city or county does with stuff. My city has events twice a year where you can take old batteries, styrofoam, old electronics etc and they have the various vendors there to take them and recycle. But some of those places take stuff on their own too. Some goodwill's will take stuff to recycle as well but you'll want to check their websites because it's not every location.

Another thing we've done, but it helps we live on a very well traveled 2 lane street, is if we have something that's still usable but too much of a pain to figure out how to get somewhere, we put it on the street. We did this with both a gas grill without the tank and a recliner and both were gone within a 2-3 hours if that. For that matter my co-worker did it with my old water heater when he replaced mine in my old house and it was a neighborhood street, it was still gone within that time. People will stop for stuff like that either to use, resell or to turn in the scrap metal. I know some won't agree with it but it can work.

My mom had college hunks hauling junk out over the summer to take a bunch of stuff we had in the garage and no longer needed, old fridge, tires etc. They do charge but they will also donate and recycle what they can. It was also nice being able to get rid of so much at once and knowing someone else would do the leg work of recycling and donating etc. But I also realize not everyone wants to pay for that type of thing, for us it never would have gotten done otherwise due to no truck and heavy items.

Good luck on your purge! I find it much easier to throw other people's junk away but I try and be good about donating or tossing the item I'm replacing except for shoes, I keep my shoes :)
 
I know there are decluttering threads out there but I feel I need extra help with my attempts at purging. I have this little thing I like to call "landfill guilt" where I try to recycle as much as possible. (I'm getting better at it I swear :).)

Before I go nuts with this, I would like advice on how you handle the following kinds of clutter:
  • old electric wires/headphones - Do you just trash these or are there places that can recycle them?
  • appliances that no longer work - Same question as above
  • torn/unwearable clothes - This one is my biggest stumps cause I feel they can't be donated. Throwing them away feels wasteful but I don't know of any places that recycle just fabric. (I have at least a dozen pairs of jeans with crotch tears in them). There are lots of clothes recycling bins but I dunno if they expect wearable clothes or will accept any fabric, I also have gloves that are missing one, one bedsheet of a former set, etc
  • worn towels and other torn fabric - See above
  • old CDs - Can these go in single stream recycling or is there a special recycling I must do?
  • broken/chipped ceramics - I would love to recycle these if I knew of any places that did recycle them
I was hoping to get some advice as to how to sell some items that might have cash value (as to the best websites etc). Apparently that is against the site rules. So I'm stumped as to what to do. I don't think it's worth the hassle of listing each and every item on Amazon or Ebay (with no guarantee they'll even sell) then go through the trouble of proper shipping (which I end up paying more than the customer does anyway). Plus most of the things I wager are in "used and not very valuable condition" anyway. Have it you found it just easier to just get rid of it all (Goodwill 'em, etc)?

I'm (intending to anyway) really committing myself to this purging/decluttering thing this year. The funny thing about it is that at least 10-20% of the stuff I need to get rid of in my house weren't even my things to begin with. They belonged to various relatives (plus one ex-friend/roommate) who lived in the house before me over the years and just left it there. I really want to get rid of stuff though but it's a constant struggle to have to go through things. Hoarding is in my family blood I guess. Particularly my dad. I have a bunch of old microwaves and vacuums he keeps hoarding and storing in my house that I want gone since I dont even know if they still work (plus they're dirty and I don't want to go through the trouble of restoring them) but as I mentioned above, I hate having to trash electronics/appliances.

This feels like a dumb thread for me to have start. As you can see I'm a newbie to this whole decluttering/purging thing. But thanks anyway.

I will be recording any progress that I make in the 2020 declutter thread. With the amount of stuff I have it wouldn't shock me if I reach +1000 items this year.

Having worked in recycling i can tell you the horror stories abound! When in doubt, recycle. But from my work experience i can tell you 1. Things like electronics are a special breed of recycling called e-cycling, and most companies in areas hold a yearly e-cycle event where you can take your PCs, phones, ipods, headphones, all that electronic junk and toss it intoma box and they dispose of it (tbh they probably pass it off to mrf's). But please literally DO NOT recycle stuff with wiring. If not for the environment then for the fact that wired items get lodged into the machinery and it jams up. And lemme tell ya, having been the dupe that he has to climb into the machines to bolt cut thru various bric-a-brac, it is not fun.

(And horror stories, yes, seriously. All im gonna say is hospital grade medical waste and dead animals? Yeah people recycle everything.)

Clothing i dont want i thrift, torn or not. If the stores doesnt want it, then they dispose of it and its off your hands.

Good luck slimming down stuff! I wouldnt mind doing the same thing!
 
Thanks for the tips everyone! In doing my research on recycling I read that my city happens to be one of the worst in the country with it. :scared: So I've decided as I move forward with this decluttering thing to not stress myself about it so much. I also read much of the stuff that gets sent to Goodwill eventually ends up in the landfill anyway. :p

But hey, gotta prioritize my mental health over the environment sometimes. :tongue:
 
Old appliances i put in a open box on the curb... the junk guys take it to the recycling/scrap yard.
Our local resale shop takes all clothes... they recycle everything. The old worn out jeans old clothes
 
what about seeing if a school with art classes would want the old clothes to cut up and use in various art projects?
 
Our town has electronics recycling but we have to drop it off. Ds23 just gave his old comforter to the shelter where we adopted our cat years ago. They couldn't accept old pillows because they need to be able to wash all these things. We keep old jeans because eventually we paint something, a room, home exterior, etc so we'll use them eventually.
I put old towels in the garage. They get used for car washing and eventually as a rag for something greasy and get thrown out or sometimes get used as a tarp when painting. By that point they're pretty tattered.
I'd look on Purple Heart. They list all the items they'll accept and won't accept. It's great that I can just put it on my front porch and they'll pick it up.
As for large appliances, our town requires us to call and they'll pick it up within a week but usually scrappers come along and grab it before the township truck comes.
I feel your pain; I hate putting stuff in the garbage that might be useful somehow for someone, even if it's not really worth selling.
 
what about seeing if a school with art classes would want the old clothes to cut up and use in various art projects?

There’s a store in our area that is like a thrift store, but for artists. They sell all kinds of stuff and even do little classes for a specific project. (Like if they have tons of felt scraps, they might offer a class where people can come in and make felt books or if someone donated a huge amount of bottle caps, they might use them to make a mural.)

I know it sounds very random, but I have seen stores like this in two other cities I have visited recently so I think they are becoming more popular. May be worth the OP looking in their area
 
Two of my favorite lap quilts were bought at Amish auctions and are simply made up of old jeans, cut up into 8" squares, and stitched together. They wear like iron, and can be machine washed. (My mom makes them and then keeps them in vehicles as car blankets.) I've actually kept about a dozen pair of my husband's old jeans in the thought of doing this project myself. If you aren't a sewing person, consider donating them to a 4-H sewing group, homeschooling group, etc, that might enjoy turning them into something like this.
(Disclaimer: there are tons of videos out there, but I find this the easiest one to follow Jean Quilt
Terri
 
The clothing store H&M has bins to recycle clothing, including unusable stuff with holes. They also accept bed sheets, towels, etc but as others mentioned shelters would appreciate those.
 
I found a guy on Craigslist looking for old appliances. He would pick them up and take them for recycling. I’m sure he must have gotten money for it.
 
I decided last year to declutter my home. I started out with one room at a time and stood in the middle of it and decided what I really wanted to keep and what I wanted to get rid of . I wanted my home to be simply to clean and run, as I enter into my elder years. First I gave to my immediate family some things . Then I just started putting things outside at the end of my driveway , things that I wanted to get rid of but couldn't bare to just toss. Things always magically disappeared lol. I didn't bother to sale anything, I frankly didn't want the headache. I did advertise on my local junk website and craigslist , "free items", and as they disappears I just took the ad down. I just got finished cleaning my tons and tons of old blankets and sheets and gave to my local animal shelter to use as bedding. It has took me about a year of on and off cleaning to get every room done. Now I am so pleased with my home . My craft stuff was really hard for me to clean but I just bit the bullet and refused to let myself keep anything that I knew I was not using. It did get easier as time went on to toss stuff, at first it was hard to toss stuff, I spent a day going though Christmas stuff to only toss 2 things haha it takes disciple for sure. Good luck .
 

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