Unclutter 2014: days 31–40

[nou]

As previously noted, I'm doing Unclutter 2014, which involves getting rid of 1 thing per day in 2014, plus an extra thing for every thing that comes into the house. I thought I'd also keep track of where the things go (landfill, charity shop, recycling, etc). I'm planning to post once every ten days, giving a summary of how I'm doing.

Days 1-10: 32 out (6 landfill, 3 recycled, 19 charity shop, 2 gifts, 1 Freegle, 1 used up), 8 in, net total out: 24.

Days 11–20: 28 out (12 landfill, 6 recycled, 8 charity shop, 1 Freegle, 1 used up), 15 in, net total out: 13.

Days 21–30: 29 out (6 landfill, 11 recycled, 5 charity shop, 1 Freegle, 6 archived), 3 in, net total out: 26.

Days 31–32: Nothing in, nothing out.

Day 33: 2 out: handful of old receipts (recycling), broken key fob (landfill).

Day 34: Nothing in, nothing out.

Day 35: 50 out: plastic tub collection winnowed through, everything we don't use regularly put into recycling.

Day 36: 5 out: 2 boxes of old earplugs (landfill), 1 sliver of ancient soap (landfill), 1 surplus-to-requirements tube of medicated cream (landfill), 1 no-longer-needed instruction leaflet (recycled).

Days 37–39: Nothing in, nothing out.

Day 40: 1 out: old bottle of mouthwash, dregs tipped down sink and bottle put into recycling.

• Total out so far: 147 (29 landfill, 73 recycled, 32 charity shop, 2 gifts, 3 Freegle, 2 used up, 6 archived)
• Total in so far: 26
• Net total out at day 40: 121

I had to think carefully about the plastic tub collection on day 35. None of it was bought - all of it was left over from takeaways and other food purchases - but it was all saved purposefully for reuse, in some cases for years. Although some of it was unusable due to incompatible lids/tubs, some of it could have been reused if I'd taken the time to offer it on Freegle. I decided against this because I already have several outstanding offers on Freegle and I'm running out of the time/energy to keep up with it - but in an ideal world, I would have tried to find these tubs a new home with someone else. Putting plastic in the recycling is better than putting it directly in landfill, but there's no guarantee that it won't eventually end up in landfill anyway.

Comments

[peaceful_sands]

Well done on still making steady progress. If you're worried about plastic in recycling going to the landfill eventually, there's nothing to say that wouldn't happen with something given away - somebody might take something thinking it would fill a purpose and when it doesn't work as they hoped they could just throw it straight out without going via the recycling. As with all things - we have to hope for the best.

Good luck for progress over the next ten days!

[nou]

Thanks — yes, you're right! I do think it's worth thinking about this sort of thing, but not getting too worried about it.