To throw old books into the recycling bin?

[Dixie81]

I read a lot. Almost all the books I buy are secondhand and rarely cost more than £3. I try to buy ebooks as much as possible but often the used paperback version is cheaper. I only have a small house so theres a limit to how many books I can keep and I reached that limit long ago.

The problem is trying to get rid of books I no longer want. Charity shops around here won’t take them. I tried a few online buyers but it cost more in postage, packaging and petrol than the books were worth and was far too time-consuming to deal with. They also refused to take a lot of the books and only wanted certain ones. I found one of those ‘little free libraries’ but the lady running it said they were inundated with books and having to dispose of a huge amount themselves. So I decided to put them in the recycling bin since that’s where they’ll end up anyway.

I mentioned this to my partner last night and he said it was a terrible thing to do. He thinks it’s disgraceful to throw any book out and not make the effort to pass it on to someone. I explained that I can’t find anyone who wants them but he seemed to think I should try harder regardless of the time and money it takes. For context, these are mass-produced paperbacks so I don’t see how it matters but I’m curious to hear what others think.

Charity shops won't take them because they take up too much room for the money that they generate and they get overwhelmed by boxes and boxes of them
They are often put in recycling by charity shops and their sorting depots ditto tip shops

Cut the spines off with a Stanley knife, stick the pages in the recycling, and don’t give it another thought. In an ideal world we’d all have the time and headspace to find the perfect new home for every single thing we no longer want. But honestly? Between full‑time work, family, and caring for elderly parents, I just don’t. Sometimes I make the least bad choice simply to get stuff out of my house. Have I occasionally chucked recyclable things in the wheelie bin because I didn’t have time to get to the tip and I needed them gone? Yes. Do I lose sleep over it? No.

You’d be surprised - they offered £5 for an old statistics book, whereas most other books were offered at under £1.

@Somersetbaker

In my shop, we write in a week number (week one being the beginning of April) so we know how long books have been out.

There are people who will pay the prices the shop charges, although I do agree that some others are probably put off. And I do think the prices are a bit too steep, but I also think that selling paperbacks for a pound would be too low. We would never be allowed to - and if staff disobeyed instructions, I'm sure that higher management would come down on our manager like a ton of bricks. We'd also never meet our targets if we priced as low as that (even if it encouraged more people to buy.)

I think there is room for a middle ground, but (for Oxfam shops), generally, stock going at dirt cheap prices is a thing of the past.

You seem to be under the impression that WoB will take ALL of your books, even if they only give you 20p for them. Trust me, they don’t. So you are still left with a pile of books to deal with.

It is admirable that so many people are determined that no book should go to recycling or the bin, but the fact is that is where they are going to end up whether you spend time and effort advertising them online, sending them off to WoB or dumping them on a charity first.

Thank you for posting this. Unfortunately, I am in one of the areas that they don't cover.

They don't cover Lincolnshire, Suffolk, Norfolk or half of Cambridgeshire.

They also don't cover most of Wales or Herefordshire or Wiltshire.

But this really does sound like an absolutely excellent charity.

If your partner wants to do something else with them I think he should be the one to do it.

Life is too short to go to hours of effort and research just to get rid of clutter. If you can easily pass them on in a way they will be used, great. If not, chuck them away and think nothing of it. Otherwise you're just passing the task on to somebody else anyway.

Not sure why you thought it appropriate to post a condescending reply given your lack of comprehension skills.

My reply was specifically to the PP (not OP) who said they wouldn’t be interested in her books (listing various types of non-fiction). Lots of popular fiction is rejected by WoB but they do like some niche books (including non-fiction), some unexpectedly so.

My friend went through a stack of books and obviously WoB were not interested in the ones you could buy easily from WHSmiths but she did make a reasonable amount by scanning barcodes whilst sipping a glass of wine.

If they are tatty / outdated...yeah, recycle them. Our free library has a lot of books that should have been dumped.

My options are:
Our local B and Q has a table of donated books they sell for charity.
The civic recycling centre has a table for books.
There's a small free library in the village.

Some charity shops take them and some refuse.

Then maybe try ebay? You can list stuff for free on there.

I may be a bit odd, but some of the non-fiction books I have bought on ebay (because they are literally not available anywhere else) have been:

"dated self-help/DIY/decor/travel type books"

Reader's Digest Book of Home Improvements, 1977 (I think it cost around £10)

The Road to India: Guide to the Overland Routes to the East - John Prendergast 1977 (I paid around £15, today it is around £30)

Reader's Digest Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain, First Edition 1973 (I paid around £30 but good copies are going for £80 plus these days)

.

"...memoirs from people who died decades ago"

These can also be worth a little bit of money. Some time ago I bought a first US edition of The Small Woman on ebay for £10 (it was published first in the UK in the same year and then a few months later in the US).

Nowadays, different editions are selling on ebay for around £15-£20.

For context, this book is the biography of a young British woman who went out to China as a missionary in the 1930s.

The book was then later made in to a film in 1958 called 'The Inn of the Sixth Happiness' starring Ingrid Bergman.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5469562-theattagirls-on-twitter-the-true-story-behind-the-1958-film-inn-of-the-sixth-happiness

So, have a look on ebay and see if other people are listing the books you have, for sale.

If so, then there is likely a market for them.

The book [The Small Woman] was then later made in to a film in 1958 called 'The Inn of the Sixth Happiness' starring Ingrid Bergman.

They couldn't really call it The Small Woman with Ingrid Bergman in the role!

My mum has that book (The Small Woman) on her shelves. I did read it about 30 years ago!

You can donate them through the post- Oxfam will send you a bag, you fill it and then take it to the post office

Is it not the case that for a charity a quid is better than nothing? While there are many books that I wouldn't want new or used, at the right price I might take a chance, I'm reading one now, hardback by an author unknown to me, published a couple of years ago, I suspect it's never been read, a bargain at £1.50 original price £16.99 but at £5+ it would still be in the shop, I'll donate it to another shop when I've finished it. The whole ethos about buying books in a charity shop is the lucky find, if I want something specific I'll go to a dealer and pay accordingly.

I buy lots of charity shop books. They're about 50p each.
The same books are there week after week.
Things like hardback cookbooks are heavy to carry home.
You need space for them when you get home.

I read a lot and can't keep all of them.
Like the pp, I'll buy a cheap book on the off-chance I might enjoy it , but not one costing £5.

SellYourBooks collect from your home address for free so I’d use that if I were you.
Any they don’t take then offer for free and use recycling as a last resort.

Why not use a library or a kindle?
or Oxfam bookstores?

I leave all my slightly tatty old books in Tesco on the charity shelf. We're not allowed to put them in the roadside recycling because of the glue.

@Somersetbaker

A pound is better than nothing, but £4 is also better than £1 or £1.50, and there are a fairly good number of people who are prepared to pay those prices.

So while I agree that pricing hardback novels at £1.50 might cause some people to buy who wouldn't have otherwise, having that as a blanket price would lose us the additional money we get from the people who do pay the higher prices.

Let's say we have two customers buy two hardback novels each, so four in total, (all at the original cost of £15.99) for £4.99 each - that's £19.96 for the shop. If they're priced at £1.49, we get £5.96. Let's add on three other people who wouldn't have bought anything at the higher price, but between them they buy five hardback novels. £1.49 x 5 = £7.45. £7.45 + £5.96 = £13.41, which is still quite a bit less than if we just had the original two customers pay the higher price for their hardbacks.

Many charities don't operate on a "every little helps" attitude but a "try to get as much money as possible" attitude. So while, yes, a small amount is better than nothing at all, charities don't just want better than nothing, they want LOTS better/more than nothing, which they aren't going to get if they have their stock exceedingly cheap.

Like I said - I actually do agree myself that the prices in the shop I work at are a bit too steep and think they should be a bit lower. But not as low as £1.50 for a hardback. Either way, knowing how they operate, there is no way that our shop will get permission to decrease prices, even only moderately. Higher management have given our manager specific targets to meet and she is under significant pressure to try to meet them - too much pressure, considering the low wages Oxfam pay their shop managers.

WoB have been rejecting about 90% of my books in the last few months, they are looking for very specific titles now.

If you’re anywhere near to Norfolk, this place is great for donating old books to - and buying them too.

https://www.wnda.org.uk/no8-the-old-bookshop

On the back of this thread I have got rid of a box full of books (and other stuff) via Anglo doorstep collection. They take clothes, ornaments as well as books. They sell in bulk to overseas buyers who sell on markets. A proportion is given to charity. It's possibly slightly better than putting them in landfill but not as green as giving them to people to reuse.