Do you throw toys and clothing away?

[painfullyshywhy]

I give everything to the charity shop or ask around or try to sell online (but that is so time consuming I don't bother anymore unless the item is brand new with tags) and I just can't stand the thought of good stuff being chucked in the bin.

Now, my parents are serial thrower away-ers eyeroll and my younger sister actually threw away a massive bag of fairly trendy clothing including a cardigan that my mum thought I had borrowed and she had given me a real telling off for losing it. I never borrowed it dsis had nicked it and then thrown it away instead of giving it back to dmum who lives with her! she could have put it outside her bedroom door but instead she black bagged it ready for the tip!
My old lego sets were all dumped even though I asked if I could have them for my kids when my siblings were too old for them. The same with my old guitars which I tried to bring home but was stopped because dsis wanted to learn. dumped mere weeks later.
Why do they do this?
I just can't understand why someone would throw away good stuff especially when people have shown an interest in having it! especially your own child or grandchildren!

It makes me so mad!

Another relative asked if I wanted any clothes for ds and dd as they are having a sort through. I said yes ill come to pick the bags up on xxx day. got there and they had thrown them in the bin as bin day is Tuesday and you said you'd come on Wednesday.
just tell me! or don't tell me because now I know a big black bag of good clothes are rotting in landfill instead of being reused.

I see bin bags of good stuff and toys being thrown out on my street daily. (everyone uses a little green area as a dumping ground and the council collects every 4 weeks or so) and I just don't have the space to save it all!

The cost of some things, to throw it in the bin, sometimes not even used... it blows my mind! I don't know how people can do it.

I know I sound preachy but it just feels cruel. my family know how much it upsets me, and its like they revel in telling me what they've thrown away.
The kicker is that they have about 6 charity shops and a shelter to pass before they get to the dump. and I have said I will come and get whatever you're throwing away and take it to the charity shop or give to friends children who are the same age or have xxx interests.
I don't understand it. this is more of a rant but. I needed to get it off my chest before I ring my parents up and explode!

I never throw clothes away. I pass down to family or friends, donate or recycle in that order.

Toys I haven’t had to deal with much yet - getting some ideas from this thread.

Anything in good condition goes to charity shop or passed on to friends

Clothes that are too worn/damaged for resale get bagged up separately as “rags” and taken to charity shop as they can get money from the rag man

Only throw things away if no other option

@freakyfridays you are so right! it is a pain. its annoying and really upsetting that
A) its hard to give away good quality things for free
B) Its hard to find second hand items when I know they are thrown away in the thousands

Shoes can go in textile banks in car parks.

I bin very little. My porch always has a bag of stuff waiting to be charity shopped / recycled.

Many people are poor in term of time and storage... it's a bit unfair to abuse them because of it.

[quote painfullyshywhy]@freakyfridays you are so right! it is a pain. its annoying and really upsetting that
A) its hard to give away good quality things for free
B) Its hard to find second hand items when I know they are thrown away in the thousands[/quote]
Someone started a local FB where people ask for stuff they need. That seems quite popular and efficient.

The best way to reduce waste is to reduce what you buy in in the first place.

I do try to pass on things that are still decent.
My clothes are generally trashed by the time I'm done with them as I'll wear them until they're shabby.
Things that still have some kind of life such as shoes and clothes I'll tend to put in the big clothing banks. The better end, the charity shop.
I have some friends that have been given first dibs on baby equipment/ toys.

A random worn out sock will just go in the bin as it's not worth the effort for its contribution to recycling/ landfill.

@freakyfridays
what a great idea! I will set one up for my local area. I have toyed with the idea of setting up a school uniform one for my children's school. I wouldn't mind sorting out all the uniform and that but I'm unsure of how to work it out. if anyone has any ideas I'd be very thankful

No I don’t bin stuff if I can avoid it. If it’s beyond anyone else wanting it (eg socks with holes in) it goes to rag recycling.

I generally can’t be arsed lugging bags of clothes to the charity shop so I use a collection service (enviroclothes) who pay a small fee which I opt to send to charity.

Really good stuff I might sell on eBay if I think it would be worth the effort, but I also pass things I think are nice to friends or family with DC younger than mine.

Toys go to the charity shop, which is where a lot of them came from in the first place! Unless they are totally broken in which case they would have to end up in the bin.

And I am always looking for kids shoes- nobody donates and nobody is selling locally in the sizes I need. I do get that though because I know my dc absolutely trash shoes. me and dh decided to try a more expensive brand recently- no difference.
Wellies are the only ones that last. (good job we are a family of puddle jumpers

I have one DC. He grows out of things all the time.

I either pass them onto friends or take to the charity shop, unless clearly old. Things like snow boots may only have been worn three or four times. Coats and any decent school uniform, sports kit and shoes, I pass to a school uniform charity.

I throw away some toys but donate anything that is clean to our local preschool.

[quote painfullyshywhy]@freakyfridays
what a great idea! I will set one up for my local area. I have toyed with the idea of setting up a school uniform one for my children's school. I wouldn't mind sorting out all the uniform and that but I'm unsure of how to work it out. if anyone has any ideas I'd be very thankful[/quote]
My school takes donation, and sell the stuff back.

They haven't got storage for non-branded uniform unfortunately, or shoes.

@freakyfridays

and kids shoes, what are you supposed to do with them?

Some of them are nearly new, kids grow fast - and again, school shoes bought last spring didn't get much use. No one wants them! Fair enough, but what do you do with them? They end up in the tip because there's only so much hoarding you can do in a normal size house.

There's big recycling bin things you can put shoes in. All over the place. We have them at sainsburys, tesco and the tidy tip has them.

There's big recycling bin things you can put shoes in. All over the place.
We have them at sainsburys, tesco and the tidy tip has them.

The problem is that half the town has been busy spring cleaning during the lockdown. And people are twats so just dump everything next to the bins.

Our local supermarkets shut the bin facilities! (didn't stop people from leaving stuff around them...)

Some schools have recycling bins, but when they are on school grounds, you can't access them because of covid!

In Scotland there is a charity www.kidsloveclothes.co.uk/ who provide nearly new and new clothes to DCs who have had to leave the family home for example due to domestic violence or been referred by social workers.
They only hand out non damaged stuff and would be absolutely grateful for any new school clothes. They may be able to advise of similar charities in people's areas.

I never bin stuff unless it’s broken- charity shop or Facebook market place for everything we don’t want or need anymore or pass things on to those who need it- friends, women’s refuge, a foster carer I used to know.

Not only do I hate waste I really feel it’s our responsibility as society to avoid stuff going to landfill as much as possible so recycling stuff where possible should be second nature.

I repair any clothes I don’t want before taking to the charity shops eg replacing buttons sewing seams etc

Ditto toys that are safely repairable.

Broken/unrepairable things are repurposed. Buttons taken off shirts, fabric cut and saved then donated to craft groups or made into new things here.

I occasionally offer known broken items as spares online as there are people like me who might need a part in the item I’m offering for free. I passed on a broken blender (my jug had broke, the lady who took it her motor had broke) to keep another one in circulation. I’ve offered for free attachments for items that have broken people have happily taken. Last time my hoover broke so I took all the parts off and offered them online for free. They went to 3 separate people to mend their own hoovers. One took the hose another the brush heads and one wanted the dust bin as hers was cracked.

Win win I say.

I save anything good that I don't want and either do a bootsale or charity shop them. I only bin things that are well used or broken

Evangelical about re-cycling and I buy pretty much all of my clothes from E-bay. Designer at a fraction of the price. Anything I buy that doesn't fit goes back on to e-bay. Stuff not really worth selling goes to Charity Shops or put in one of the charity bags that we get through the letter box for later collection. We are busy sorting out in our attic so enjoying dividing into sell/bin/freegle/charity shop. It is amazing what people take on freegle and is a great option as they come to collect it. If you agree a day/time then you can just leave it outside the house. We have a lot of china, glass and pictures up there that is going on freegle at the weekend as it is too complicated to sell on e-bay and not so easy to take to a charity shop without the car.

We freecycle things we can't take to a charity shop ie furniture etc

Painfully I do sell brand new socks and underwear in my charity shop ... it comes as corporate donations from big companies but even at really cheap prices it is hard to sell those sorts of things. I've said this many times on Mumsnet but we get donated brand new school uniform (unbranded ie; black/grey trousers/skirts) and even at £1 per item I can't sell them ...

I find customers are very 'discerning' fussy about buying clothes for children from charity shops and would rather buy new which is sad - particularly when many items in my charity shop are brand new and clearly labelled!

Generally I try and give away or sell anything that is still good, however i must admit during lockdown i hired a skip and cleared out the loft and did chuck it all in the skip.
Some stuff was in good or reasonable condition but some if it was out of fashion ( clothing) or defunct, videos, cassettes etc it would have been hard to get rid off elsewhere and charity shops were closed.
Also it would have been a monumental effort and with the best will in the world I have charity shop bags that have been in my understairs cupboard for a year,.
The skip hire people do metal/ plastic/ paper recycling anyway so hopefully not too bad!

Think the key is to sort it little and often and dont let it build up so its not such a massive job!

@Ragwort

Painfully I do sell brand new socks and underwear in my charity shop ... it comes as corporate donations from big companies but even at really cheap prices it is hard to sell those sorts of things. I've said this many times on Mumsnet but we get donated brand new school uniform (unbranded ie; black/grey trousers/skirts) and even at £1 per item I can't sell them ...

I find customers are very 'discerning' fussy about buying clothes for children from charity shops and would rather buy new which is sad - particularly when many items in my charity shop are brand new and clearly labelled!

Hello @Ragwort, remember you from other threads and I'm a volunteer in the same chain as you.Totally agree that underwear is hard to sell, and we can't shift new school clothes however cheap you price it. In fact, our manager has decided to stop selling children's clothing altogether as it takes up space in the shop and just doesn't sell well at all.

I do agree that there is a balance to be struck - no, charity shops don't want all your broken junk that you can't be arsed to tip. But on the other hand, nobody wants everything in landfill. Our shop recycles all textiles so no old socks, sheets, stained t-shirts etc will go to landfill. If things aren't fir for sale, they can be used in other ways. Plants shred old clothing for use in mattress stuffing or sofas, and the warehouse where rags are sorted for our chain is heated using a boiler fuelled by burning what's left over. If you have textiles to donate and mark the bag as rags, the volunteers will love you.

I don't think i've ever thrown away an item of clothing, ever, into the bin with the general waste. Clothing has always gone into recycling. Natural fabrics can also go into compost.

Toys - we do get a load of broken stuff into the shop and I think it is because people feel guilty about chucking it away and kid themselves on that someone would be grateful for it. All they're really doing is shifting the responsibility for throwing it out onto someone else.

The REAL problem is that everyone's buying too much stuff in the first place...

I'm the same as you, can't send anything to the tip unless it's trashed, always taking stuff to the charity shop. I don't bother selling anything because for me it's more hassle than it's worth.

thanks idiots who rejoice in sharing how wasteful they are. Well done- most of us think you're evil)

Oh yes, throwing away stuff you don’t want anymore certainly makes you evil 😂