To think a skip is easier than the general fucking public

[bussteward]

I’m on a major declutter and obviously can give bags of things to charities – but the ones near me are small and can’t accept limitless donations or certain items, eg opened bags of nappies, boring baby things like mountains of vests, or “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” type stuff. Fine.

But JFC trying to give stuff away via Olio/Freecycle/Marketplace etc is a full-time job dealing with the hard of thinking. No matter how clear the ad stating the pick-up times available – and Olio even has a rule you’re supposed to mention a time in your first message – you get conversations that go:

Available?
Yes, until 1pm today or I can be around any time tomorrow if you let me know when so I don’t have to wait in all day.
OK, this afternoon.
As the ad states, I can’t do after 1pm today. Please let me know a time that suits you tomorrow.
Tomorrow afternoon.
OK, I’m not going to wait in all afternoon: so let’s say 3pm.
::tumbleweed silence::

It’s like pulling teeth.

Then there was the woman who did specify a time, forgot to come, rearranged, messaged once she was an hour late to say her car had broken down, never confirmed a new time then turned up randomly three weeks later when the item had long gone trying to give me a box of cat food. I do not have a cat.

Every pick up time comes and goes without a ring on the doorbell, then the message comes: just waiting for my partner to come home with the car then I’ll set off. OK?! But you said 9am and it’s now 9.30 and you’ve not set off, so that’s an entirely different time and I have plans.

Obviously I am not going to throw everything in a skip or set fire to it all but it would be easier. Can’t put it all out the front with a sign saying “free” because it’s constantly pouring down. Can’t specify “no fucking idiots, what’s wrong with you people” on the ad. I don’t have an AIBU because I’m NOT unreasonable: it is the people who are unreasonable, aren’t they?

I saw a decluttering woman on YouTube who said that all your stuff is going to end up in landfill eventually anyway so it may as well be you who puts it there if it's simply overwhelming you!

But wasn't it still dark at 5.30 am in December anyway?

I don’t think that’s true of everything, and if we all pass things on. Plastic is fairly indestructible so picked up a used baby bath from Freecycle and have just passed it on via Olio (to the irritating woman who inspired this thread). Hopefully she’ll pass it on rather than sending it to the tip, and so on and so forth. Even if in 10 years someone does tip it, that’s 10 years of use for many families, and hopefully it would get recycled rather than landfilled.

Everything I’m trying to declutter has a useful purpose, just not to me. Eg when we did a house reno and added central heating, we bought column radiators from screwfix who sent free thermostatic valves with every radiator. But we didn’t need them. Now, should I have sent 8 pairs of valves to landfill, or given them away to the man doing up his house on the cheap, where they’ll live happily for years?

That’s kind of a weird way of looking at it and horribly unsustainable.
Yes it will eventually end up in landfill but if it’s used by another person first, they don’t need to buy something that ends in landfill too. So by passing something on I’m saving them having to buy new.

For instance - my baby bouncer was a friend’s (new) first. I was going to buy one but she gave hers to me so I didn’t have to. It went through both my DC. A friend was then talking about how she hated her bouncer and was going to buy the better brand she wanted - I said oh, I have it going spare so i got it out of the loft and have it to her saving her a purchase. I don’t know if it’s been passed on to a fourth home or not but the point is that there were two purchases that were avoided and that makes me happy.

I truly, truly hope that a more circular economy in the way forward.

I leave items items outside in a bag! Everything is always collected

I recently got rid of 7-8 bags full of kids clothes that I've been keeping for yonks thinking I'd do a carboot, but never getting around to it.

I took my bags to the bottle bank where there is a clothes recycling bank for the Salvation Army. They reuse the clothes, rather than just make rags.

I'd imagine they're dotted around, so worth keeping an eye open. The joy of finally getting rid of the clutter has been amazing!

Regarding open packets of nappies, baby onesies, et cetera can these not be donated to a local hospital/maternity ward or even a local nursery to use? I remember when my son was little we were given loads of nappies in size one and we didn’t get to use them all before he grew out of them. So we donated them to our local hospital for them to use with newborns.

With baby & small children clothes, try Vinted selling as bundles. I spent £13 yesterday on basic bundles for my baby, she’s sorted for nursery clothes for leggings/tops/baby grows.

The charity shops struggle to sell baby clothes and few will accept them in store.

They make a token gesture of separating out the big stuff, i.e. mostly any larger metal items that they can sell, and they'd separate other "recyclables" such as wardrobes, chests of drawers, a pile of shelves etc if big and obvious enough, and likewise piles of aggregate such as bricks/paving slabs, etc., but they certainly aren't going to spend time opening bin bags of random items to split out anything plastic or small electricals, or batteries, etc. All the "smaller" stuff will just go into the "landfill" pile. If you look at the yard of a typical skip hire firm, there'll be a pile of metals, a pile of wood, a pile of aggregate, and a pile of non-recyclable which is where everything else gets dumped. When a skip comes in, they take a quick look - if it looks a mishmash of nothing in particular, then it all goes on the landfill pile. It if looks like a skip full of metal, then it all gets dumped on the metal pile, etc. If there looks to be a fair amount of metal, mixed with a fair amount of wood, then it'll get emptied in the yard and the easy metal will be taken, the easy wood will be taken, then the rest is scraped off and put on the landfill pile.

It's a bit like those conveyor belts in recycling centres that are sometimes shown on TV programmes - a lorry load of recyclables are dumped at one end and then there's a row of people "separating" the recyclables from the non recyclables and then pick the "obvious" recyclable items to go into the recyclable skips and everything else (even a lot of potentially recyclable stuff) goes into the landfill skip because they don't have the manpower/time to check/pick every last potentially recyclable item.

I often consider writing to the government and asking them to do something about hospitals being overwhelmed by all the people who have car accidents on their way to collect my free stuff from Facebook Marketplace. No wonder the NHS is in crisis!

3 years too late sweetie. Go get some pan lids off Freecycle and get out and bang them on a Tuesday night.

Picking up Freecycle stuff and going on Tinder dates are the two worst things you can do for your car, it drastically increases the chance of accident or breakdown.

I almost asked that question last night, then I realised I was on a hiding to nothing trying to understand the logic of someone who would show up unannounced at 5:30am in the first place! 😂

@bussteward - this will not help re your post but you made me laugh there - I have not heard the term bagsy for 50 years . So you made me smile - back to the thread

@Wishawisha , @JaneJeffer , if the clutter is overwhelming you, then it's probably time to bin some of it.
When people have been hoarding, sorting things into recycling, donating etc is adding complications.

I say that as someone who reuses and recycles pretty much everything, but sometimes I end with so much 'stuff' that I am overwhelmed. When it gets like that, I have to do a quick sort and sift otherwise I'll get a mental block about it.

Yes it was still dark at 5:30am - I think between that logic and showing up that early in the morning took me by surprise.
I messaged her later that day saying wtf you said you couldn’t drive in dark and who actually turns up unannounced 5:30am…her response was “I was up anyway and decided to come”. I decided to leave it there as I just couldn’t wrap my head round it!

Sorry meant to tag you @sueelleker and @MindfulMess.

I think if you have a lot of stuff, some charities will pick it up.

I attempted to sell DS toddler bike a few years ago on eBay. Collection only, pay cash on collection. Agreed a date and time for pick-up which came and went. Messaged asking if they're still coming. Buyer replied that car had broken down, so we made another collection time. Again, agreed time came and went so I messaged again asking if they're still coming. Buyer replied that they had no petrol. Could I give them £5 for petrol and they'd take the bike for £5 (bike was listed for £10). Um no! It was just before DS nursery broke up for Christmas, so I bagged up some toys, grabbed the bike and gave it to the nursery for lots of kids to enjoy

They wanted you to send them 5 pounds and then when they came to your place (if they ever did) they would give you 5 pounds and take the bike?!?

@MindfulMess yes, it seemed that was their plan. 50% off and I give them £5 for petrol

To be fair, it was a great plan from their point of view.

I am a food waste hero and I agree with that. It’s a shame it never got better since the post was made