What household ritual brings with it the promise of renewal and more display space other than spring-cleaning? At the same time, what else causes more stress than the task of having to sort and discard all those things? A household can amass an amazing amount of stuff in a year, but simply carting it to the nearest landfill just isn’t done any more.
Give it away
Charitable organizations, children’s homes, and even hospices are usually in need of clothes, electrical appliances and a good book or two. You only have to look around the neighborhood or read the paper to find out who needs what. It’s incredibly easy, and it’s only right that you ensure the item(s) you want to donate are clean and useable.
Sell it
The secondhand market is practically the entire reason for EBay’s existence. However, selling online means having to wait for buyers to contact you, and can be troublesome if you want to dispose of a lot of stuff. Selling things online works best if you clean-up periodically and deal with fewer items.
A quicker way to get rid of many items is to hold a garage/yard sale. However, this could be a hit or miss affair. Such sales are popular where I live, but not all are successful. In fact, there have been many occasions where I’ve dropped by a sale near the end of the day and found the seller(s) sitting disconsolately behind a tall mound of unwanted clothes.
Most of the time, I’ve found items unappealing because they were ugly (sorry, but there has to be a reason you didn’t wear it for 3 years), overpriced, or just dirty. It doesn’t have to look like junk that’s been jumbled together just because you’re discarding it. Moreover, being junk, it’s a good idea to price it at no more than one-third of its original price, less if it’s really old.
Once you’ve gotten the pricing and publicity right, though, it’s usually just a matter of keeping track of the money that comes in.
Swap it
One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure, right? One of the best swaps I’ve made was exchanging a punch bowl set for a set of baking pans. Swapping doesn’t have to be confined to clothes; it can encompass any number of things around the house, as long as you don’t want them anymore. There are exceptions though, such as grandmother’s china collection (especially if grandmother still lives with you).
Together with shopping less frequently and recycling what you can, creatively getting rid of things you no longer want is one way of ensuring our landfills don’t overflow with trash.
