Decluttering your home can leave you with a mountain of items you no longer need or want but that still have plenty of life in them. Instead of throwing them away or donating them to a thrift store, you could share these items for free in your community, as demonstrated in a recent YouTube Shorts video.
The scoop
Decluttering is a great way to free up space and organize your home, but what do you do with the items you no longer need? Many people opt to donate them to thrift stores, but this could contribute to more waste as not all items get sold.
Shelby (@Shelbizleee) shared a great hack on YouTube Shorts that can help ensure your pre-loved items get a second chance in your local community.
The best thing about this hack is you won't have to take your donatable items far. All you need to do is google your local Buy Nothing group and start sharing what you have. Buy Nothing is a great initiative for offering things to your local community, and it is an "easy, free, and fun way to reduce waste."
How it's working
You simply take pictures of the items you want to get rid of and upload them from the comfort of your own home at no cost to yourself or the receiver. Because the group is active in your local community, you won't need to find the time to take items to the thrift store or local waste dump.
You can also use the group to see if anything you need is going for free in the local area, and it is a great way to get to know more people in your neighborhood.
Not only is this initiative great for saving you time and money, but it can also help reduce the amount of waste going to landfills. A staggering amount of waste is sent to the landfill every year, much of which could be recycled. If you don't have a local Buy Nothing group, there are still plenty of other ways you can recycle unwanted stuff.
Municipal solid waste landfills are also the third-largest large source of methane pollution in the United States. Methane is a toxic heat-trapping gas that contributes to rising global temperatures, so reducing the amount that enters the atmosphere is important for the health of the planet.
What people are saying
The comment section was full of praise for the hack, with several users stating how much they love to share their unwanted items with the local community.
"I love passing things on to my neighbours," one user commented.
"I always do [this]," said another.
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