My New Year's Resolution: Waste Disposal

[Chuck]

Each American goes thru about a ton of solid waste annually

Chuck Thomas - CleanMPG.com - Jan 9, 2011

On Black Friday, I got a new, (relatively) more powerful notebook. It's was only $298, but still beyond four desktops and three notebooks I had prior to it.Most of them were in a room I seldom enter, so finding them was like seeing a High School yearbook and baby pictures. Got at least 400 3.5-inch diskettes - anyone need a set for MS Office 95? Netscape? OS/2 Warp?

Obviously I had software and hardware that needed a home so once I transferred gigabytes of files from all these computer, I donated a couple of desktops and two more notebooks. Still have monitors, keyboards and mice. Usually there is a fee, so I'm waiting for the quarterly Saturday to send it to the city for free.

Now for books....in some places I look like a branch of Half-Price Books - I should send many of them there. Topics like programming in Pascal or using Microsoft Bob. At this point you might believe I have an extra room if only I recycle, donate, or trash this stuff.

I also found some camping equipment with food dating back to 1998. The dried food was still OK, although the canned foods except the chili were a lost cause long ago. This must be what many Cold War era fallout shelters were like with rusted cans and other perishable goods.

Then I found clothes I could wear in a lost closet and other items. Turns out my shopping list is shorter as I have many of the items here!

Some obscure article estimated each American leaves about a ton of solid waste annually. Being a pack rat, I may shed at leat that much during 2011.

This is my New Year's resolution....

[paratwa]

I began my decrapification last summer. I've parted with LOTS of things in that time. Some straight-up trash, but quite a bit of it actually of value. Its still a work in progress.

I had a bad habit of buying "collectables" in my 20s. A good chunk of these I've ebay'd away (and made a good bit of money too!). Ebay is your friend for things of value. It may take longer to get them out of the house than putting them in the can by the curb, but someone else gets to love the items you've held onto for FAR too long.

The largest items I've parted with were a 1996 Accord (sold through CraigsList) and a 1998 Honda Shadow (motorcycle). Other items of note: 9 full boxes of paper and magazines (that got recycled into our local newspaper), a complete bedroom set included queen size bed and 3 dressers (I still have the darn headboard though ), a drivers side door to a Honda Accord (dented, gave away to a scrapper), a small bag of computer processors (Pentium Pros have 1 Gram of gold in each!), various comic book collectables (two full sized Green Lantern props) and action figures all went to ebay, A laptop that never lived up to its potential (ebay), 20 or so incandescent light bulbs and light fixtures (given away to habitat for humanity).

If anyone wants to help ME on my quest to decrapify, please bid on the Laserdisc Karaoke player I have up on ebay.

Actually, I am still looking for a way to get rid of automotive plastics. I have an aircleaner box, a couple of plastic body parts, and headlights. If anyone has a suggestion besides the curb I'm all ears!

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I have de-crapification to do too. I'm a pack rat to avoiding just throwing stuff in the trash. I'd be much happier if I could recycle it all, but It'll probably end up as a mix of trash, freecycling and donation.

Lots of albums to check. Most are probably warped from standing in flat piles. Plenty of cheaps CDs, maybe some would be worth bundling up and selling. And if anybody here still uses cassettes there's a bunch of those too!

Really nothing valuable in the junk although there's one board game that's still in plastic wrap that we'll hang on to until we really need to get rid of everything.

[paratwa]

Originally Posted by ItsNotAboutTheMoney

And if anybody here still uses cassettes there's a bunch of those too!

I'll see your cassettes and raise you TWO boxes of VHS tapes (one of home recorded TV crap and the other full of commercial retail movies).

The movies I think I can find a home for being donated or to community centers. The box of self recorded stuff is harder for me actually. I'm not sure where to dispose of magnetic tape environmentally.

[Chuck]

I forgot to mention a homemade shelf that houses 160 VHS tapes....that could be CDs....no - put them on smart sticks or just see the movies on YouTube.

[Bike123]

freecycle is a good way to get rid of "usable, but not valuable enough to ship" items. You can get rid of some non-usable items, too. I thought my old cracked kayak was landfill material, but it now decorates the ceiling for a church youth group.