Getting Rid of Things

The most important step to decluttering is to actually let your stuff go.

I'm going to donate this to Goodwill, but let me drive around with it for 6 months

After decluttering and going through everything, the easiest thing to do is stick your donation bags in the trunk of your car and forget about them. The biggest barrier to letting go is finding a new home for the items, as it takes research and effort. After making so many decisions in the decluttering process, photographing and posting things online can feel like a mental burden.

If you get overwhelmed trying to find intentional homes for your things, you're not alone. From my experience, this is a vital part of becoming a more conscious consumer. Going through this process of intentionally giving my things new homes helped me shift my spending mindset. Honestly, the real lesson comes from the disheartening reality of how much ends up as trash, but don't let that stop you from trying. If I'd gotten rid of things as quickly as I bought them, I never would have learned to be more intentional with my purchases. Accepting consumer responsibility is confronting and takes effort, but it's what helped change my behavior. Even posting things on Facebook Marketplace for free helps you become a more conscious consumer, because you're giving your items a chance at a new life.

Here are some ways to let go of your things:

Most Successful:

My favorite methods are posting things onto Buy Nothing Groups and Facebook Marketplace (listing for free). One person’s trash is another person’s treasure! You’ll be surprised what people will take. Once, I was able to hand off lightly used lipstick (after cutting off a chunk). Other options include OfferUp and NextDoor, but these apps have had little success in my personal journey.

Selling Things:

If you try to sell your items, give yourself a time frame of how long you’ll hold onto it before you have to donate it/let it go for free/trash it.  I give myself  1-2 months, as anything longer the momentum and motivation to let go the items goes away, and the item gets reabsorbed as clutter. As soon as you list it, create a calendar reminder in 1-2 months to remind yourself that it's time to part with it if it has not sold. I will say that selling things when it's in season (i.e. clothes) has a higher chance of success, but it may require holding onto something for a half-year.

Just know that selling things can be haarrrrddd. More often than not, I'm not successful, and it's disappointing because I know how much I spent on these items. Going through this experience has helped me get better at discerning what to buy in the future, so I end up in these situations less. For clothes, I’ve had much success on Poshmark and Facebook Marketplace, but there’s also Depop, E-Bay, ThredUp, and consignment shops.

***Remember to be safe when selling your things for in-person meetups!! Here are tips on listing and safe practices, but always use your best judgement!**

Donation:

If you want to donate your items: non-profits, thrift stores, libraries, and animal shelters are great places. I want to emphasize on reading the criteria for donating items, as most places don’t have the bandwidth or space to process or take-in everything you have to give. Even Goodwill has a list of items they do not accept. Unfortunately, a lot of people bypass or overlook the fact that most of their things will still end up in landfill, when they drop off their items at certain donation places.  Please do your due diligence.

Recycling:

Another option worth exploring is recycling specific items. Check what's recyclable in your city and find the proper drop-off locations. Some brands and stores offer in-shop recycling, often with a discount on future purchases as an incentive. A number of clothing brands will take back old garments to resell or recycle properly—Patagonia and Madewell are good examples, and I've also seen a wetsuit recycling bin at Rip Curl.

Here are some other businesses that offer recycling programs: Pact partners with retail stores to cut down on beauty packaging waste, and Trashie takes your clothes (for a fee) to make sure they're donated rather than landfilled. For outdoor gear specifically, this REI guide is a great resource: How to Retire Your Gear.  

Trash:

There are still plenty of things that can't be sold, donated, reused, or recycled. Just because something could be reused doesn't mean it will be. It's disappointing, but it's the reality.  

If you're dealing with large items or a lot of stuff to trash, look into whether your city offers free bulk-trash pickup days, or have specific drop-off locations. You can hire someone to help haul things away for you through services like TaskRabbit or local junk removal businesses.

Throwing things away can feel uncomfortable, especially if you grew up with limited resources or carry guilt around climate impact (I relate to this). But in my opinion, it's a necessary part of the self-reckoning process. If the discomfort comes from it clashing with your values, that's actually a good sign. Acknowledging consumer responsibility—and sitting with that discomfort—is where the real growth in conscious consumerism happens. It's this lesson that now helps me say no to impulse buys and look for quality, even on a budget. Ask yourself: is this item worth more than the space it takes up, or the mental weight it carries?

Again, I want to emphasize how important this last step of intentionally letting things go is to the decluttering process and becoming a more conscious consumer. Along the way, I learned what is quality actually looks like, which companies surprised me with greenwashing, and even how to get rid of stains.

Schedule one weekend to do it, how about this upcoming one?