What To Do with Your De-Cluttered Clutter

If you’re following along with our New Year’s de-cluttering resolution content, then chances are good that you’ve at least made a little bit of progress in starting to get rid of clutter, “stuff” and, yes, even junk. But often times the hardest part is what to do with the excess you’ve de-cluttered. In our ten step de-cluttering plan, we even noted that you’ll want to be sure to get the clutter out of your home as quickly as possible. That’s because the longer that you keep it in your house, the more likely you are to get stuck on the hurdle of becoming re-emotionally attached to it. Once it goes from the closet to the garage, the chance of it leaving the garage gets pretty slim! But the question then arises, “What should you do with all of your de-cluttered clutter?” To help you along, we’ve put some ideas together.

Of Course, Donations Are Always Welcome

We’re going to assume that a good portion of your stuff is actually useful! As noted in our ten step plan to de-cluttering, the best move is to sort into five categories: trash, recycling, donations, keep and re-store. We suspect that for many people, the donations pile will be pretty big! Just remember that there are actually a lot of things that your standard charitable organization can’t take as donations any more that may fall into the recycling category (like televisions, for example). But anything that you’re getting rid of that somebody else could use is best as a donation. After all, not everybody has the luxury of collecting “stuff” and clutter. Goodwill is always a great choice, but also look for localized church thrift shops or even food banks that have extended services as well.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Making a Little Money Off Your Effort

Of course, there’s also nothing wrong with seeing if you can’t pad your pocket for that dream vacation or energy efficient upgrade to your home, either! You may find that there’s enough interest in the items that you’re getting rid of to actually make some cash off of them, and the options for doing that are pretty expansive these days. You can go the traditional route with a garage sale or going to a swap meet or flea market. Just remember that if you do that you’ll need to wait until you’re entirely done with your de-cluttering effort and that means you run the risk of just moving your clutter from one area to another and then just re-storing it. You can also use the internet. Sites like ebay or Estsy (if your items are of a more vintage variety) can help you earn dollars from clutter. Consider those as alternatives.

Much of What You Have Can Be Recycled

Chances are that you sorted the obvious paper, glass and plastic recyclables when you went through your initial de-cluttering exercise, but there are actually lots of things that can be recycled that you may have missed. The most important among these are electronics. Most charitable organizations and donation centers can’t take electronics any longer, and simply throwing them out not only pollutes ground water but also can lead to significant health risks to scavengers who try to recoup their copper wire. Sort your electronics and find your nearest electronics recycler (tip: Staples will recycle anything that counts as office electronics even if it wasn’t bought there). But there are plenty of other recyclable items that you may not know to sort out. Anything aluminum can be recycled, not just cans! So lawn furniture, foil items, etc. are all available for your recycling pile. Crayons are another one – and many of us have those in our clutter pile for some reason! Just do some basic research on surprising things to recycle and you’ll find an entire list!

Get Artsy and Crafty

We’re big fans of upcycling anything that you can. We won’t judge you at all if you add a sixth pile to your sorting when you clear out your clutter that is for items that you plan to upcycle or turn into arts and crafts. We will judge you if you create that pile and then instead of actually doing the arts, crafts and upcycling projects you just keep the clutter stored in your house again forever! We actually think that the best way to do this, if you’re going to do it, is with a double sort. Create your upcycling and crafts pile as you complete your de-cluttering activities. Then go back at the end and honestly assess if you’ll really use the items you saved for projects. If you really, really want to be a superstar, also make yourself a little schedule with deadlines for the upcycling and crafts projects that you envision doing and then be sure to get rid of any of the stuff you saved if you don’t actually complete the project.

Most Importantly, Just Be Aware of Landfill Issues

No matter what you decide to do with your de-cluttered clutter, all we ask is that you keep the reality of landfills in mind. If you can avoid adding it to a landfill, do! Of course, if the option is landfill versus clutter in your home, we vote landfill. And the other reality is that some items are completely appropriate for landfill use. All we’re really asking is that you do take the time to sort out what can be used by somebody else or recycled into new materials and try to get those items to their end destinations. And if your clutter involved pharmaceutical or beauty products, please follow these best practices. We want you to de-clutter and find the satisfaction of enough, we just want you to also do it responsibly.

Did we miss an idea for what to do with your de-cluttered clutter that you want to share with us? If so, just tell us about it on one of the social media channels below.