What To Do With Your Junk

When you’re ready to get organized and you have some big projects in mind, it’s a good idea to take a moment to make a disposal plan so you can be free and clear of the debris as soon as possible and enjoy the results. You don’t want to sit around looking at piles of things you don’t want for any longer than is necessary.

You essentially have five options for disposing of items you don’t want or need:

1) Toss It:  Recycle what you can, and use heavy-duty trash bags to bundle up the rest. Make sure that you get realistic with yourself about what is really considered trash. If it’s torn, stained, threadbare, shrunken, bleach-spotted, unraveling, rotten, smelly, moldy, or rusted… please, just give up on the idea of repairing it or salvaging it and move forward. If you have hazardous materials like paint, pesticides, automotive products, or cleaners, check with www.earth911.com to find out how to properly dispose of these items in your particular area. It’s very important to keep these chemicals from getting into the landfills and eventually into our water supply!

2) Give It To Friends:  If you have specific friends in mind during your project, create a special box or bag for each person to gather what you’d like to give to them. Make sure you have a plan for actually making sure the stuff gets to them promptly, and don’t be offended if they don’t want it. Remember, one person’s clutter is possibly another person’s clutter too!

3) Give It To Others: Did you know that the average American throws away 54 pounds of clothing and shoes a year into the landfill? Donating your items to Goodwill helps both the environment and the economy. Goodwill helps place people into jobs and provides job training and other services to put people to work. You can find the nearest Goodwill location at http://locator.goodwill.org. Whatever charity you choose to donate to, please make sure you're dropping off at a legitimate donation site and not a random box in a parking lot that may actually be for profit. And don’t forget to get a receipt! Those household goods can earn you a really nice tax deduction.

4) Return It: You will likely run into items that need to be returned for a refund or store credit, or returned to their proper owners (friends, libraries, video rental stores). Make a note of these items and put them in your car so you’ll have them handy when you’re nearby those locations.

5) Sell It: Organizing can really pay off when you get cash for your stuff! Local consignment stores, Craigslist, and eBay are all great resources. Some people like having yard sales, but make sure you consider the amount of time it takes to prepare and price the items, promote the sale, monitor it, and take everything down when you’re finished. It is often better to donate the items instead and earn the tax deduction, rather than spending your valuable weekend time sitting around your garage.

Consider each of these five options before you jump into your projects, so that the decisions and research are already done and the clutter can flow smoothly out of your life. If you’d like more details on making a disposal plan, you can find them in chapter nine of my book, The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. And if you want personal help from experts to get direct advice on your projects, check out our affordable program at ClutterDiet.com. May all of your projects have LOTS of disposal!

(This article was originally published on Connections for Women, where I am a regular contributor. It's a great site with lots of info and resources!)

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Comments

[Naomi]

Great advice. Thanks for sharing!

No. 1 seems particularly important. A lot of people who resist getting rid of things seem to do so because they don't want to throw things away. They feel guilty about wasting things, so they refuse to toss them, and the clutter just snowballs. I'm curious about how you persuade your clients to get past that.

[Cathy]

I have found that the best thing in the world is the Freecycle network - you post what you have and someone is probably going to want it. (You might be enabling their hoarding, I know... ) I have a new Freecycle "friend" who loves to pick up boxes of misc stuff and then she offers it up on FC - that saves me from having to do it, plus, if there is anything she sees that she can use, she will just keep it as she sees fit. (google "freecycle" and your county or area to find a local group)

[Kathy]

What I do with my good recyclables is
1. share with friends and family
2. garage sale what I can
3. direct donation to the homeless in my area
4. Salvation Army

After doing some checking I have found that in my area the Salvation Army does the most charitable good. The waste that goes on with the Goodwills in my area is appaling.

[Amy]

I like books. I have ones that I will want to read in the future, but not yet. So getting rid of them just isn't my idea of fun! Then I realised that if I donate them to the local library, I'll know where they are when (if) I want to read them again!! Besides, they have a better cataloguing system than me!!

I don't like to waste things by throwing them away, but I figured I was "wasting" these books by not sharing them with others. Problem solved! (And they took my jigsaw puzzles too!)

[Genny Esterline]

Love this. Sometimes we hold on to things for the wrong reason. Hadn't thought about the library for books...thank you Amy for that.

One of my biggest challenges is computers. I have two sitting in my garage full of info. A very dear friend there in Austin told me about a welders magnet against the hard drive to erase the information. Haven't done that yet because I do not have the monitors to turn it on and confirm that the info is gone. Any suggestions?

Genny
www.connectionsforwomen.com

[Lorie Marrero]

Here's an article with advice on erasing your hard drive: http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?threadID=239771 It's best to get an IT professional to advise you on this, because basically, it's way more than just "emptying the recycle bin." You have to really do it right or risk exposing your information.

Hope this helps!
- Lorie