We all have more “stuff” than we need and if you are like me, two or three..or four times a year you feel the need to get rid of the excess. When it comes to de-cluttering our lives it is important to consider the impact on the environment. During my purges I have often been guilty of too quickly throwing things into the trash: ripped shirts, old underwear, fabric scraps. Who would want things like that anyway?
Most recently I took a class about storage and organization. A major topic of discussion in the class was getting rid of the excess in our lives. My environmentally conscious teacher passed on many tips for how to do this in an eco-friendly fashion. What I realized was that there is hardly anything that actually needs to be put in the trash, right down to your dirty old underwear.
Stores like Salvation Army and Value Village are actually paid money by rag companies for clothing scraps. So next time you are getting rid of old underwear, cut out the crotch , throw it away, then put the rest of the material in a bag marked rags, and send it on. You get rid of your old stuff, organizations get money to put towards their cause, and the environment isn’t harmed by extra trash. It’s a win win situation. The same goes for ripped and stained clothing. If you don’t plan on using them for rags yourself these second-hand stores are more than happy to take them and sell them to rag companies. In addition, these stores always need more hangers for the clothing they sell so if you are re-vamping your closet with some fancy new hangers, add your old ones to the give away bag rather than throwing them out.
We all know we can take our good used clothing to these thrift stores or put them in the clothing bins they have set up around the city, but some other organizations you may consider donating to include: Cinderella Project, Dress for Success, and Dixon House. Cinderella project is a good place to send old bridesmaid dresses to in order to help out teens who don’t have money for graduation dresses and the later two organizations help out women who are going through, or have gone through, some hard times and are trying to re-build their lives.
Hope these tips help you next time you decide to purge! If you have any questions about other things that you want to get rid of but don’t know what to do with, please let me know and I’ll ask my all-knowing instructor.