How to get rid of your waste properly

If you have recently had, or have decided to have a massive clear out and de-clutter or a complete clearance of your home, then you may be considering what you need to do with all of the things that you have but do not want or need. Getting rid of your waste properly is very important, and you should put plenty of thought into it, not properly disposing of your waste could be considered fly tipping and could make you liable for prosecution and even a fine of up to £5000.

There are a number of ways in which you can get rid of things, so once you have completed your sort out of everything you don’t want, look through the rubbish and try to fit each piece of rubbish into one of the following categories:

Things to Sell:

Sort through all of your stuff and separate anything that is in good condition, may be desired by someone else or that you think you could sell on. Selling as much as you can from the house clearance ensures that you make some money back, when you consider the amount you are likely to have spent on your house clearance it makes sense to try and make some money back as and where you can.

Not all things will be able to sold in the same way. For example, things like jewellery, handbags, shoes, televisions, mobile phones, furniture etc. are all things that if they are in a good condition could be sold privately. You can use free advertising sites, such as gumtree or preloved, or auction websites such as eBay to sell your belongings, equally you may have some free notice boards in local post offices/shops where you can advertise for free.

Things like books, CD’s, DVD’s, i.e. things that you aren’t likely to get more than a pound for, can be sold at things like flea markets or car boot sales. You can sell a lot of your stuff in one day at an event like this, making hundreds of pounds back on small things that you may have considered just recycling or throwing away. Always bear in mind, that if you have some things like this that are in good condition but aren’t worth lots of money and therefore you cannot be bothered to sell it, you could instead donate it to a charity that could re-sell it.

Phil Champion [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Things to Donate:

Don’t donate rubbish, only donate things to charity shops that are in a good condition and can be re-sold on for a small profit. Donation is not a quick way of getting rid of everything, you will need to sort through your rubbish and find things that the charity might want, they won’t take just anything. Try to donate a much as you can, obviously you may want to sell some things to recover some of your losses, but equally, donating to a charity is a good cause and knowing you have done something good to help will make you feel good about yourself.

Things to Recycle:

Recycling is very important for the environment and we are all encouraged to recycle as much as we possibly can. A clearance or removal company will recycle up to 90% of your rubbish, and there is no reason why you can’t do the same. Go through all of your rubbish and take out absolutely everything that can be recycled, collect all of these things together and sort into the relevant groups (i.e. plastics/metals/paper etc.) and dispose of these at a local recycling centre.

Things to Dispose of:

You will more than likely have some rubbish left over that needs to be disposed of, even if you have recycled and donated or sold everything you possibly can. If you have one or two bin liners you might be able to leave this out to be collected in your weekly bin bag collection, however, anything more than this should be disposed of at a waste disposal centre.