Besides consignment sales, spring is also time for spring cleaning. No matter how carefully we consider our purchases throughout the year, my family always seems to have piles of stuff by spring cleaning time that we no longer use or want. The last thing I want to do is contribute more waste to the landfill, especially when what I might be throwing out is not waste at all but simply an unwanted item in my house.
My three go to sites for passing along unwanted household items are Paperback Swap, Freecycle and Craigslist. The April issue of All You magazine had a table comparing five other trading sites that were unfamiliar to me. Yet another reason to love All You! I’ve already covered the basics of Paperback Swap in another post so here’s a rundown of the other options.
1. Freecycle
Freecycle is a system of yahoo groups. Members join a local group so all items posted are within easy driving distance. Unwanted items are posted to the group message board and members respond via email with interest and to arrange a pick up time. There is no fee to join or to post. Through Freecycle, we have passed along several unwanted household goods that would have otherwise ended up in the dump. We’ve been surprised at how quickly we’ve been able to pass along many items using Freecycle that were useless to us.
2. Craigslist
Craiglist is also a free service. You can post unwanted items in the free or the for sale sections. Craigslist is the most popular swap site, and it’s also divided by region so there aren’t any shipping costs involved. We’ve had a lot of success using Craigslist to buy, sell and give items away.
3. Swap-It-Now
Swap-It Now offers free membership and listings. Members can trade, barter or swap goods. The site is growing, but there is currently not as much selection as is available on Craigslist.
4. SwapThing
SwapThing is another option for those who want to swap, buy or sell items. There are 3.4 million things available for trade on SwapThing according to the counter at the top of the page, so you could possibly trade an unwanted item dug up during spring cleaning for something you do want.
5. Swaptree
Swaptree is another option in additon to Paperback Swap for trading media, but Swaptree offers trades for types of media beyond books including music, DVDs and video games. This is definitely one I’m going to have to check out.
6. TradeAway
There is a fee for using TradeAway, so while it may be a great place to buy, sell and trade if you have a large number of items, it may not be your best option for unloading spring cleaning “unwanteds.”
7. Trashbank
Trashbank is another site offering a large pool of goods for sale or trade. It’s free to register, free to post items and free to request trades.
With all these great options to putting unwanted items on the curb, the only casualties of spring cleaning that should end up in the dump are those that are truly trash.
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