Donate, recycle and share the love

The project:
Donate and otherwise deliver a van full of items including:
- a mountain of boxes to the shipping store for reuse
- plastic bags to the grocery store recycling center
- clothes, toys and miscellaneous baby-related items (yeah...we're way past that) to the thrift store
- geocaching supplies to a more active fellow 'cacher

Time:
30 minutes

Why bother?
Things do tend to pile up, particularly if you're averse to simply tossing recyclable or reusable stuff. Such is the case with those shipping boxes in which anything from birthday presents to confidential papers have been delivered to our home. I hang on to them because: a) I'm too cheap frugal to toss them only to have to buy a box when I need to shop; b) it seems wasteful not to recycle them; and c) you never know when you'll need a box.

But you can only save so many, and our garage pile filled a quarter of the rafters - it was time for a cleanout. Rather than destroying and recycling them, I dropped them at our local shipping store, the owner of which welcomed them with a big smile and open arms.

The other items have been multiplying gathering in the garage, too. It was time just to let it all go.

Worth it?
Absolutely - all these goods were delivered somewhere they could be used at no expense to the new recipients and no major effort by me beyond drive/delivery time.

Photo courtesy Rebecca Bollwitt under Creative Commons License.