BellaOnline Forums Money Frugal Living Please don't throw useful things away!

It's best to donate what we can use, recycle or compost what we can, and allow ourselves the luxury of very small amounts of actual garbage.

Even clothes that are in poor shape can be made into cleaning and shop rags. Cut them up and place in cleaning buckets under your kitchen sunk, in the bathroom, and in the garage or craft rooms. Cotton especially - cotton should never be tossed - it is very absorbant, and growing cotton takes a lot of resources.

Animal shelters are hurting for old blankets, sheets and towels that are no longer in 'people condition'.

Food, coffee grounds, and yard wastes should be composted or worm binned,if at all possible.

Offer used appliances and computer parts - working or not, for free on craigslist and freecycle. There are those who refurbish, recycle, or upcycle these things. There are metal components inside anything electric that can be readily recycled. Tons of people will take these things off your hands if you don't want to do it yourself.

Donate unopened past due date food to food pantries. Don't just toss these things - some people are hungry.

Can something have a use - in whole or part? Can you think of a better solution before you toss the next thing?

What are your thoughts?

I agree with you completely Jilly. I hate the 'throw away society'. Maybe some people have become too affluent and no longer appreciate the value of things.

I offer anything possible on Freecycle now. When I was still living in England I used to put larger items outside the house with sign saying 'please take this' and someone always did. (Can't do that now as we live in a condo.)

And there is always a thrift store somewhere nearby to take smaller stuff.

So agree. I live in an apartment building. When I put out trash, I often put a small sign "still works" or "take this please" I have gotten a lot of good stuff that way. I *rescued* a book "Proverbs for Daily Living" it is a favorite.

Absolutely. I recycle or donate everything I possibly can. Thank you for the reminder. This is an especially good post for Earth Day.

Thanks for your messages, guys.

It's amazing what people will take away for free on craigslist and freecycle. Almost anything that someone has can be a resource for someone else - even the odd stuff. I'll have to start a thread about some of the things people are happy to use, that we might consider garbage.

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

The senior center thrift store tossed an excellent small coffeemaker this week. It looks new; is super clean. One of those black five-cup ones that you see in hotel rooms.

Works great. Why did they put it in their dumpster?

I agree, I recycle things and then donate the other things to others that can put them to good use as you quoted in your post...Hate to see things wasted...!!!! thanks,tmelton

That's great that you do that, tmelton! It's something a lot of us could be better about.

I also pulled out some older dolls that someone clearly donated, but were not deemed good enough to sell. I will put them together and offer them as a whole to crafting-type folks on the free section of Craigslist. People use old doll parts all the time.

We had a good recycling system earlier on, in India.
Old clothes could be exchanged for steel utensils, but this is no longer prevalent. We still have raddiwalas. You can sell old worn-out things, like plastic/metallic items, electronic/wooden stuff, even newspapers/magazines, to them.
But, sadly, these old ways are slowly disappearing, in their place newer and higher garbage dumps are appearing. It has become a major civic problem.
Recycle is the best way to control the garbage. I donate clothes/books either in some orphanage or anyone who appears to be in need. I reuse whatever that can be put to some other use. But, we still produce a medium bag of (mostly) kitchen waste in our home every day!

My neighbor is throwing almost everything in his apartment away right now. He's an overseas student, so I guess everything must go. There's no excuse for not bringing things to a thrift shop, though.

I've been digging things out of his mess and putting them in a donate bag to bring down myself.