Reduce, Reuse, Freecycle

Image from www.321now.org

This has been a crazy month for us getting ready to move. I have to admit, homeschooling is very difficult to do amid piles of boxes and lists of things to do. I've moved a ton of times in my life, but never so far and with so much stuff. Mostly I just moved from one dorm to another in college, and when I was a kid we moved as far as next door. Now we are moving about 7 hours, and we have to make sure we have everything packed and ready, plus we have to be able to somehow use our stuff while it's packed.

Oh and here are some tips for finding homes for some of your old furniture.

1. Put it outside with a free sign. We had the ugliest couch in the world, half of the upholstery was missing and what was left had stains and holes. The only reason we kept it was because we had a couch cover. I put that ugly thing outside without the cover and after 3 days it was gone. Hallelujah!

2. Freecycle it! Freecycle is a community of people that give away their old stuff for free to anyone who wants it. One warning though, don't put anything on freecycle until you are ready to part with it. I put my washing machine on Freecycle last night, thinking it would take a week or so to find it a home. This morning I woke to a ton of emails from people who wanted it. I felt bad, since it was my fault for posting it so early, so tonight someone is picking it up. Now I have to go the next 2 weeks without a washing machine! Luckily my mom lives close by and has one.

3. Network. I also have a refrigerator that needed a home. I talked to everyone that I knew, and they talked to everyone they knew, and so on. Someone a few degrees away from my mother is picking up the fridge the day we move. Another one bites the dust!

4. Used furniture and appliance stores. Now this is a place we didn't use, but we would have if we didn't find any other takers. Actually, this is where we bought a lot of our furniture in the first place, including our refrigerator. Many of these places will pick up your stuff for you, but not all of them.

My goal was to keep our stuff out of a landfill. I hate to see perfectly good stuff thrown out that someone else could use. In college my friends would go dumpster diving and find televisions, microwaves, stereos, etc. all in perfectly good condition! Since I've seen so much waste, and wasted plenty myself in my college days, Rory and I have decided early on to buy as much used stuff as possible and to buy as little stuff as possible. We don't collect knickknacks, furniture, or anything. We do receive a lot though from friends and family. It's amazing, I've noticed the less we buy, the more stuff is just given to us for free!

What are ways that you recycle your old furniture and appliances? What things do you do in your home to keep trash out of landfills?