Are you about to move? Save yourself from clogging up endless boxes and get rid of your junk now. Look out to separate everything you don’t need for the recycling bin and schedule a collection by junk removal!
What is junk?
Per definition, junk is pretty much any item you don’t need and has been sitting around for ages without being used. Traditionally, trash has no intrinsic value, but maybe you attached a personal value to an item that would be junk for anyone else. For example, if you still have dolls and other toys from your childhood that sit around in a box without being used, one could consider it junk. Unless there are special collector items among those toys, they only have a sentimental value. Once those toys are broken, they indeed are nothing but junk. They’ve lost their functionality and are not nice to look at anymore.
However, junk also is any item that’s broken. Be it your juicer, blender, mattress, washing machine, a broken chair as well as an old sofa. Anything that has passed its maximum time of functionality is nothing but junk. Especially with sofas, armchairs, and mattresses, it’s usually the upholstery that isn’t the best anymore after a few years. In addition, if you love your sofa’s style, you can always refurbish it and let someone change the upholstery and the fabric. The same goes for your beloved armchair. For example, some chairs need a change in upholstery after a few years, too. As long as the basic wooden structure is intact, you can refurbish them as long as you like. But once a part of it is broken, the chances of a repair are low, and it’s time to say your goodbyes.
Which items can be recycled?
Quite a lot you’ve collected over the years can be recycled. For example, all those magazines and newspapers piled up next to your sofa can be recycled. But have you read all your books? Do you want to keep all of them or can you let go of some? They can also be recycled along with your collection of old phone books.
Plastic and metal such as aluminum cans can also be recycled. Should you have created an aluminum can mobile but feel it’s not your style anymore, put it into the recycling bin. All plastics with a triangle on their bottom, containing a number 1, 2, 4, or 5 can be recycled. Moreover, every other kind of plastic needs special treatment or just can’t be recycled and needs ages to break down in a landfill.
Of course, glass can be recycled as well as batteries and bulbs.
Whizz through your home
It’s probably easiest to remove any junk from your home before you start packing. That being said, take a larger cardboard box or two and a stable bin bag and check one room after another for any junk you’ve collected. Subsequently, it should be easy for you to see with just one glance what you can dispose of and what you’re going to keep.
Firstly, you can check each cupboard and cabinet in every room, it’d be most comfortable to start with all paper items you don’t need anymore. Secondly, anything else that you haven’t used in a long while and which has lost its functionality goes into another box or bin bag, for example, lunch boxes that miss their lid. In that manner, you already have some separation done as you check every corner in your home for clutter.
Finally, once you’ve collected all junk from all rooms, put them into a designated area in your home to check each item for recycling materials. Now you can probably imagine why it’d be wise to have everything made of paper or cardboard in its box from the beginning. It’d be a complete hassle to fetch electronic goods and smaller items from somewhere between magazines and old books.
How to separate your stuff
It is relatively straightforward as to how you can separate recycling items from your junk. If you want to be a top recycling hero, assemble several boxes for each recycling category. Have a box at your disposal for glass, paper, and cardboard, another for plastic, and an additional one for metal items. Have a small one at hand for batteries and another for bulbs.
- Check electronics for batteries. Remove the batteries and put them into their recycling box. If your electronic device is broken and nonfunctional, it needs to be disposed of separately. Double-check old toys if they still have batteries inside.
- Separate glass from electronic goods. Has your amazing blender given up? It was a fantastic tool in your kitchen, and you loved its huge glass jug. Put the glass jug into the glass recycling box and the other parts of the blender into a box for electronics to be disposed of.
- You don’t like your ceiling lamp anymore? If you can’t re-use the bulbs for another lamp, do away with them in their designated box. Regarding your lamp itself, it depends on what it’s made of. If it’s made of plastic, it goes into the plastic box. And if it was made of glass, its place is in the glass box. Anything metallic on the lamp is for the metal category. Remove cables for the electronics box if you can. If not, put the lamp and your old printer into that box as it is.
In a Nutshell
In case you come across any other junk item you can let go of when packing, you should keep your recycling boxes at hand. You’ve surely overseen something during your first whizz through your home, and you save yourself an additional junk removal collection. However, schedule a collection date with your junk removal in time to make sure your home is cleared of anything that doesn’t belong there anymore before the next one moves in. It’s beneficial for the large junk items.
