April 10, 2015

Spring Cleaning For A Cause

Spring is finally here! And man, what a winter it has been. If you’re anything like us, those long-awaited beams of sunshine coming through the windows are highlighting all the dust, clutter, and stuff that populated and built up over those long chilly months. Sometimes it’s not the getting rid of things that’s the problem, but how we can discard our items in a way that actually does something positive for the environment, rather than just becoming more waste in already over-saturated landfills. Our answer: spring cleaning for a cause. Don’t just get rid of your things, find a way to pay it forward and clean with a purpose.

Here are lists of charities, donation sites, and organizations who will happily take your used items and repurpose them for a greater good. This is an excellent way to teach your children about charity, giving, re-using, recycling, and how to discard things you don’t want anymore while also reducing your impact on the environment.

Have a whole bunch of old magazines that you don’t want to just throw away? We love magazineliteracy.org, which happily takes your gently used (and still in good condition) magazines, and uses them as teaching tools to help promote literacy. They’ll take pretty much anything, which is wonderful. We’re not going to lie, there’s a little work involved (boxing up and shipping), but it’s well worth it.

Green American has an amazing list detailing how to recycle less obvious items. Old tennis shoes transformed into athletic flooring, used light bulbs, eye glasses you don’t need anymore — all these things, plus so much more, can be reused and recycled! A great list to keep on hand.

This giant list from Miss Minimalist is deeply comprehensive and so invaluable. From bikes to musical instruments, cars to gifts for chemo patients — this is wonderful inspiration for giving back.

Leave it to Real Simple to show us how we can recycle anything — even Crocs and beach balls! Who knew?

And if you’re more of a DIY person, this site shares 50 exciting tricks for repurposing old items in your own home. Recycling can happen anywhere — no matter how you go about it, it makes a giant impact on your life, and the lives of those around us.