Oops. Good to know for the future. 
It looks so organized now, trying to bright side that choice. 
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If you need motivation to clean out your garage, perhaps this will inspire you.
Three months ago we still owned beachfront property in between Clearwater Beach and St Pete beach. That area was hugely impacted by surge from Helene. I snagged some pics from the FB page of an acquaintance from the area. Not beachfront but on a barrier island. Fortunately, all of their living space is built up, but everything in their garage was ruined by the surge. You can see how tossed around all of it was.
I’ll also post a pic from our former building where you can see how everything in the ground floor garage was pushed out by surge.
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I actually took a bag and a fairly new but non-working vacuum to the thrift store this week (someone can fix it). I really need to get back to Bag a Week. I’ve got a long way to go before I’d feel successful.
I like having shoes, but I have a ridiculous number of shoes
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With my flooded garage I’m up to a dumpster a week!
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Our Earthcare committee at church sometimes collects dead batteries and disposes properly at hard to recycle center about 20 miles away. But most members interested in this have already cleaned out their backlog, now trying to use fewer batteries. So this fall we will do our first collection for ‘hard to recycle books’. I have started a pile.
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What is an example of a ‘hard to recycle’ book? Cookbook? Travel? Spiralbound calendars with vinyl?
Maybe old textbooks?
I have always pulled the innards (paper) out of those for recycling. Covers get trashed, but at least that is less than a whole book being trashed.
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Some book collection bins (like Better World Books) will take any book with an ISBN number. I have dumped textbooks and other hard to recycle books in their bins over the years. Speaking once with the minister at the church where my local bin was, they were very happy with it as a passive fundraiser (made them a few hundred dollars a month with no work on their part).
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Basically for me it nets out to the books that have been unsuitable to give away (though I do think the recycle center does sort through for last ditch reuse ideas; last year I took some 40 year old engineering textbooks.).
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To put it another way, any book we would not want to donate to the library. (Though they may make a pass to cull out any books appropriate for the ongoing book sale at library down the street)
LOL. We’re a dumpster a week at the moment after Helene. On the plus side we’re looking pretty good! Like my H said–“The kids will thank us.”…
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Update: After Milton we’ve got another dumpster. Mostly stuff I saved from Helene. I’m good for a few years.
I didn’t know I had so much “stuff”. Although the hurricanes made my decisions to keep or toss pretty easy and I’m dead tired I’m going to say that the dumpster was the best thing that happened. To be able to just get rid of something immediately without waiting for garbage pickup or hauling things to charity is liberating. It removed a big mind block of “will they pick this up?”, the trying to figure out when something would go to the curb etc. I’m pretty much to square one again but I’d not hesitate to just order a dumpster and go for it in the future.
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Follow-up: I contacted the middle school band director, who taught my kids 10+ years ago, and asked if he knew of any program that refurbished instruments for local students. He said the music company they use had an arrangement with an organization that did that and he offered to coordinate if I wanted to drop off the instruments at the school. I live a mile from the school and was there an hour later with the 4 instruments plus several more that previously unknown to me H had bought at yard sales, etc. over the years. It felt good!
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This thread reminded me that at Mahjongg a few weeks ago a woman was talking about her electronics recycling and how she’d gathered up a lot of old laptops and cords and tv’s and taken them to a place that the city sponsored. So I just tracked down the coupon and now I have to get all the stuff I’ve been moving around and get it down to the place. The coupon makes it fairly cheap to take it all down there. I missed the day in Sept when one of the TV stations sponsors a day when you can take everything down there for $5/carload (but you have to pay extra for monitors and TVs, so I think this might be cheaper). Now that I have the coupon, I just have to do it.
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If you have a Best Buy, they should be able to take a lot of the stuff. I have been pleasantly surprised what my store accepts. There is a $30 fee for monitors, so I’ve looked for alternatives for them.
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Staples too, but not (I think) TVs.
Our recycling center has a big bin for electronics. No money involved.
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This recycling place has a contract with the City of Denver. It normally charges $.55 per pound, but with the city coupon charges $10/ea for the first 2 TV/monitors, but after that the weight fee. Laptops are free, I think phones are free, cords are free, and then it listed a fee for other things of $5 for every 10 items (and maybe the phones are in that group) like toasters, small appliances. The good will/ARC thrift stores will take some. Best Buy will take most, but charge $30-50 for TVs.
I like that this recycling center hires disabled people and tries to fix and resell the items.
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A local arts center just opened up a maker’s thrift shop and they take crafting supplies and fabric! Dropped off six boxes the other day and am putting together more. I’m so glad to find a place where the goods will support the arts (proceeds go to the center) and people get to be creative. I have more than I need and can possibly use.
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2 more bags of shredded documents into the trash.
2 more bags of clothing/bags/etc to Goodwill.
I was trying to figure out what to do with the bottles of laundry detergent and other cleaning supplies I’ve tried and not liked and had boxed them all up. My cleaning lady asked me about the box and when I explained what it was - she offered to take all of it! Yay for less waste, win/win!
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