To throw away stuff I had planned to donate to charity.

[safariboot]

Because hardly any of the charity shops are open (understandably so) and the ones that are might not even be taking any more donations. Our house is cluttered from years of hoarding, I'd say a 4 to 5 on the "clutter image ratings", and I'm trying to do something about it though progress is slow at the best of times. There's a pretty big bag, mostly clothes, waiting to go.

YANBU - Bin it.

YABU - Keep it until it can be donated.

SixesAndEights - that's probably the hoarding aspect.

Loss of mometum could mean the hoading just continues or gets progressively worse and hoarding is notoriously difficult to stop or get people doing it to part with anything.

Well done on decluttering the hoard OP - get the stuff out of the house as soon as possible by any method available. Binning is fine.

So lucky our council provides clothes bags and collects the .

I could never bin stuff even if this wasn't happening

Was shocked to see fly tipping outside charity shop yesterday

Do you have any green-minded friends or family who could help? If you were my auntie or whoever, even if I weren’t in a position to help you with the clear out (because it’s psychologically complex and probably beyond my emotional abilities), I’d be more than happy to take bags of clothes off your hands and freecyle them or keep them in my attic/garage for a few weeks until the charity shops have cleared some of their backlog. It’s the sort of simple practical request which lots of people are happy to help with.

Do people really put a black bag of clothes outside their house with a sign saying free to take?

Wouldn’t work anyway for lots of people who don’t live somewhere with footfall past their house.

[quote Rhubardandcustard]Found the link
www.icollectclothes.co.uk/[/quote]
Thanks! Just booked a collection too.

When they are too busy, local charity shops here just bin everything anyway! Can't blame them, they can't magic storage space out of nowhere.

You could try to find a "cash for clothes" next to you, but you get pennies for kilos, so you won't earn much.

If you haven't got the time to sell stuff, I would just chuck it. That's what I am doing, I had organised so many toys and clothes and various to sell just before the lockdown.. a waste of time obviously, so it's now going to the tip. No one will want it, and experience proves that trying to give things away only attract time wasters.

Please don't bin these clothes there are lot's of those clothes collection bins around. I have taken 15 bags of clothes there myself in the past 2 weeks.
If you don't have one near you just wait a little longer for the charity shops to open again.

The supermarkets have clothes bins sometimes, schools have rag recycling bins - there are lots of ways to get rid of things without straight binning.

I completely understand the urge to want it out the house but I think about the environmental cost to produce it all and think it should be given a chance at salvage.

There are junk removal companies that will recycle for you too (junk it/junk away).

@ChicCroissant

Well done on decluttering the hoard OP - get the stuff out of the house as soon as possible by any method available. Binning is fine.

Binning isn't fine if it means stuff going to landfill that needn't go there. Lots of suggestions up thread for recycling to rag merchants or other places who reuse or recycle textiles. We need to be more responsible with our waste, dreadful pictures last week of UK plastic waste dumped in Turkey because apparently that's where we send our crap so we don't have to deal with it.

It depends a lot on the quality of the stuff. If it's all "cheap fashion", Primark, New Look and the like... They'll look like rags are a couple of weeks in bin bags, and the likelihood is that the shop would chuck them anyway.

But if it's stuff from "nicer" shops (I tend to think of that as Next and M&S and up), then try and donate it. Or at the least, put it in those donation things you see at supermarkets and garden centres.

Check out your local homeless shelter

These people will likely know who runs it
emmaus.org.uk/

I was pondering the same. I have arranged for some bags of clothes to be collected, but I've got one that's full of old/worn-out clothes that I'm not sure what to do with. I don't live near anywhere that has a textile recycling bin, so it's likely going to have to be chucked as charity collections won't take worn-out stuff.

How depressing that 54% of people say just bin it.

Ordinarily I would agree with this, however, as someone who has had to have outside help to tackle hoarding in the past, I would say get rid of it as quickly as you can before it goes back into the hoard.

I am totally against waste and am very careful not to just throw things away but if you've taken the massive leap to organise your clutter, the best thing to do is to get rid so there is no going back.

Can I just say not all charity shops bin unsaleable donations... we have a rag collection weekly (when open obviously) and the money we earn from that goes into the shops profits. They also take unsuitable bric-à-brac and scratched or unsaleable DVD’s and cds. Another company take unsaleable books and pays for those.

I just wanted to say well done for doing some work on the board. I know it must have been extremely emotionally challenging.
I hope one the suggestions above will work for you.

Seems like still virtually a 50:50 split! Anyway I searched and called some more and found an open shop. Just dropped the bag off!

I am totally against waste and am very careful not to just throw things away but if you've taken the massive leap to organise your clutter, the best thing to do is to get rid so there is no going back.

But what difference does it make if she places the bags of stuff in her bin or on her driveway for someone to collect?

Trying to give something away isn’t always a waste of time. We’ve given and received a bunch of stuff on our local neighbourhood WhatsApp group over the last 3 months - everything from large items of furniture to plants to random kids’ toys and books. I’ve freecycled a whole bunch of stuff as well over the years, but that’s a bit more stressful so maybe too challenging for the OP.

*hoard

@safariboot

Seems like still virtually a 50:50 split! Anyway I searched and called some more and found an open shop. Just dropped the bag off!

Well done OP

Stick them on FB! One mans trash is another mans come up

I take all my textiles to M&S - drop them into the shwop boxes at the till. It all goes to Oxfam who sort through to sell or recycle. Nothing goes to landfill and I don’t need to work out whether borderline items are saleable or not.

We’ve just had this discussion ourselves. It’s mainly dh’s clothes and some are worth a few quid and not even worn. CBA with listing on eBay etc and had bad experiences with Facebook previously. We are holding on for the moment