Day 2: One Person’s Trash is Another Person’s Treasure!
Where to find new homes for your old stuff (and avoid landfill):
However hard I try (and I try REALLY hard!) ‘stuff’ gets into my house. The kids receive plastic toys for birthdays, our basement floods and we need to replace the carpet or your husband realizes he’s never going to snowboard again and you need to find a new home for those never-used snowboard boots!
So what do you do with it all? Throwing anything in the trash is heartbreaking so the good news is that with a little effort, you can find a home for a ton of stuff that you don’t want anymore AND save someone else from buying something new. Win-win!
- Post all sorts of random things like sinks, drains, kids toys/bowls/cloths, carpet remnants etc for free on Facebook groups, including Boulder Babies Free Swap and Buy Nothing Boulder or Buy Nothing Denver and Outgrown Denver Baby. You’ll be amazed at how quickly it all disappears and how much of it people want! Top tip: Post measurements, a photo, your location and how you’ll pick the lucky recipient if you have multiple requests.
- Post items on the Nextdoor website for your neighborhood. We ripped our old carpet out of the basement, I posted it and within the hour someone had picked it all up!
- Sell pretty much anything on Boulder’s Virtual Yard Sale, Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace.
- If you have any nice clothes and shoes you can consign them at Common Threads or Rags in Boulder or Denver. You can also post them for sale on Poshmark which is also a great place to find clothes you’ve loved and lost or ruined. I found a Target cardigan I bought 3 years ago and lost on there and replaced a pair of jeans like-for-like that I’d spilled oil on. We also host seasonal clothing swaps in partnership with Clothing Cycle Shop, so keep your eyes peeled for those!
- Take unwanted creative materials to Art Parts, Boulder’s creative reuse center. Denver also has the Recreative! Check out the LONG list of what they accept HERE.
- Donate any extra clothing (preferably men’s), shoes, toiletries or reading glasses to Feet Forward, a local homeless non-profit run by formerly homeless people.
- Donate packaged, in date food to EFFA (Boulder) or Denver Community Fridges.
- Take any sports equipment to consign at Play It Again Sports or Boulder Sports Recycler, and if you are in Denver Secondwind Sports or Sports Plus.
- Take any furniture, kitchen cabinets, construction items or building materials to Resource (Boulder). This is also a great place to GET items you need!)
- Take old pots of paint to HMMF (Hazardous Materials).