You may have no idea just how much good your old stuff could be doing for others! Rather than letting things you no longer have use for decompose and off-gas in a big, heaping pile of trash, you can ethically purge those items instead and donate your used household items.

It’s easier than you think! There is nothing better than the feeling of a good, deep cleanse. It will help you to be more mindful of your consumerism. Be sure to ask yourself “Is this something I truly need/ Will it truly give me joy/ Does this piece have longevity in my life” before you bring anything home. The less clutter you accumulate, the less you’ll have to reassign to the landfill in the future.

Think about the excitement you’d feel if someone surprised you with a vintage, storied handbag or a fun piece of antique jewelry. There is almost nothing from your home that needs to go in a garbage can. So if there is something you don’t know what to do with – you will after reading this list!

How to Donate Used Household Items

1. Give away items to someone you know would love or could use a particular thing. For example; let’s just assume you have a 4-year-old boy – find a friend with a 2-year-old boy and give her all your small boys clothes and out-aged toys.  Hand-me-downs are also often called “pre-loved” for a reason! Better yet, join a Facebook “swap” group and dole out your outgrown sizes/stuff for things that are of use to you.
2. Hold a clothing swap with your crew, but open it up to include housewares, toys, etc. Serve refreshments, play fun music, and make it a girl’s night sort of gathering!
3. Sell your clothing to a local consignment/ resale shop, make some cash, and clean out your unused duds. Note that there are upscale consignment shops that are very picky and ones that are open to all brands in good condition. Do a Google search for consignment shops in your area and visit their websites to get a vibe for what they are looking for before you waste your time bringing in 5 garbage bags of clothes.
4. Order a ThredUp bag and toss everything (men/women/kids/ shoes/ bags) you no longer want in it and ship it back (free) to them – You can opt to have them recycle all items they don’t accept so you don’t end up in the same conundrum you were originally in. There are many other apps and sites like Poshmark that you can sell your stuff on, but with those you have to upload the pix and run the sale yourself – which may take more time than you’re interested in spending – you most likely, however, make more money. 
5. Send high-end items to The RealReal and make some dough or web store credit – only send in big-name designers for this one though – but working with them always pays off. The great thing about selling to The RealReal is conscious eco-fashion designers like Stella McCartney offer you incentives to earn $100 to shop Stella when you consign any Stella McCartney item on The RealReal.
6. Sell your items yourself on eBay – there’s no end to what you can sell.  You can choose to donate that additional income to your favorite charity to keep motivated to list more items.
7. Have a yard sale.
8. Use GiveBackBox – which will allow you to print out a free shipping label to donate your old items to a local charity in need.
9. Donate to any local shelter, hospital, home for women/children, homeless shelter, church, synagogue, mosque, pre-school, local public school, library, police or fire station, etc.  My kids’ schools were always more than overjoyed to take any toys or books my kids had outgrown. Before presuming your local school isn’t interested in your gently used items, ask! Covid precautions mean that many non-profits aren’t currently accepting donations — so make sure to call or email before donating.
10. If you have a handful of items of the same kind, Google the type of item you want to donate – example: “donate old shoes,” sure enough – up pops soles4souls.org which allows you to ship your old shoes (for free) to be distributed in poverty-stricken countries. Donate your old glasses so your glasses become someone else’s best hope at seeing.
11. Ethically recycle non-working/ destroyed items. There are textile (clothing) recycling bins all over – google your local one if you can’t find it easily. The same goes for electronic equipment. There are often free shipping programs you can use to ship items to recycling centers not close to you.  TerraCycle will take nearly anything you could possibly imagine recycling, and more!
12. Sell your old electronics. A number of stores and sites will take them. (See a list here.) Send them your old working (or even nonworking depending on the product.) electronics (mainly phones and computers and iPads) and these items don’t sit in a landfill forever, and you get paid for your conscious efforts!
13. Donate old sheets, towels, carpets, rugs, teddy bears, crockery, heating pads, baby gates/ baby playpens, and rags to any animal shelters, rescue groups, or animal foster families. There is a company that accepts old teddy bears which they use to make into new dog toys! Same with old sheets! Wildlife rescues will also accept old fur coats to rehabilitate orphaned wildlife.
14. Sell anything using your social media accounts, Instagram or Facebook, etc. – this keeps buyers close by, and the sales easier, and more trustworthy if from your inner circle or friends of friends.
15. Take your penny jar/spare change to the bank and put it in your account or give it to your kids to bring to their school to donate to a “penny fundraiser.”
16. Offer your goods up for free on Freecycle or Craigslist – you’d be shocked what people want! Extra 2 packs of shower caps? Half a mannequin? A used cat tree? All these things are prime Freecycle fare and bonus – they pick up and you don’t have to deal with pick up or booking a Goodwill pick up!  Live in a neighborhood where people drive your front yard? Leave your items on your lawn with a “Free to a good home!” sign for people to grab what they want.
17. Ever seen the waste that gets tossed in the trash after a catered event?  There are groups like Rescuing Leftover Cuisine that will physically pick up every leftover and disseminate them to the homeless! You can also call ahead to your local shelter or Boys & Girls Club and offer them your leftovers so they can expect them and be ready to receive them the day of your event.  Want a more hands-on approach? Drive your leftovers to an area where there are folks in need, and give them out.
18. Be creative: reinvent and repurpose old items. Example: We had an old bookshelf of about 5 years that was useless and broken as a bookshelf so we turned it on its side and used it as a toy storage for the kids. It stayed that way for at least 5 years before we recycled it.  Use Pinterest to come up with new ideas to reuse items that have overstayed their welcome in their current incarnation.
19. Finally; Maybe you don’t actually need to get rid of it – maybe it just needs a repair or a facelift. Example; I once had a stained old faux-leather beige knapsack from college. I loved this knapsack and didn’t want to let it go, so I brought it to the shoemaker and he dyed it chocolate brown. And, voila – my old backpack lasted another 10 years til I decided to donate it to a clothing drive.