Places to Donate or Recycle Your Decluttering Discards (2024)

FAQs

Is it better to donate or sell when decluttering? ›

If you need the money, make the effort to sell your excess—especially when it comes to big, expensive items. But if you do not need the money, just give your things away. Reselling your clutter adds time and energy, anxiety and frustration to the minimizing journey.

Online platforms

Check out Olio, Freegle, Freecycle, Ferrisapp and Trash Nothing.

This can include giving away items to friends and family or listing your items for free on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, or messaging apps that your neighbors have access to. By giving your items away, you will be able to help the people in your community furnish their homes, entertain their children, and more.

The five second rule is picking up an item, and making the decision as to whether it stays or goes within this amount of time. 'The basic premise behind this rule in decluttering is that you should know within five seconds whether you should keep something or not,' explains Amanda Wiss, Founder of Urban Clarity.

The Freecycle Network® is made up of more than 5,000 local Town groups with over 9 million members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns and keeping good stuff out of landfills.

Is Freecycle safe to use? ›

SAFETY. Be aware! It is up to each individual member of Freecycle when arranging for pickup of the item being given away to be appropriately aware of the potential risk of having "a stranger" come to your home to pick something up. Freecycle as an organization assumes no responsibility for this risk.

The closest competitor to freecycle.org are trashnothing.com, ilovefreegle.org and helpscoutdocs.com. To understand more about freecycle.org and its competitors, sign up for a free account to explore Semrush's Traffic Analytics and Market Explorer tools.

Finding it difficult to give away possessions is a complicated issue that sometimes has to do with fears about letting go of the past, worries about being wasteful, or just not knowing where to start with organizing your mountain of possessions. And there are sometimes real connections to mental health.

Overview. Hoarding disorder is an ongoing difficulty throwing away or parting with possessions because you believe that you need to save them. You may experience distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. You gradually keep or gather a huge number of items, regardless of their actual value.

Donating is good for your spirit.

There's something about doing good for others that makes you feel good. Dropping off bags of donations should make you feel awesome. You are giving those items a chance to be useful to people who truly need them. Yay for you!

One of the biggest advantages of donating old items is how easy it is. Reselling items or organizing a garage sale requires time and effort to photograph, list, and advertise the items, negotiate prices, handle potential buyers, and manage the financial transactions.

Rule #1: Toss the Clutter

The first rule when decluttering your closet is to be ruthless and get rid of anything you don't absolutely love or need. This means parsing through every item and asking yourself: Did I wear this in the past year? Does it fit properly? Is it damaged or stained?

If you have a large volume of stuff to sell quickly because you need the cash, yard sales should be your go-to. But if you just need the space in your house for other things and don't mind waiting for the kickbacks, donating to a qualified organization is a better option.