If you’re still hanging on to clothes you haven’t worn in years or textbooks from your college days, it’s time to stop the hoarding. LIM TSIAO HUI offers tips to clean up your act.
RULE OF THUMB WHEN SPRING CLEANING
If you haven’t used an item or worn an outfit in the last six months, sell, donate or recycle it.
WHERE TO SELL OR DONATE STUFF
Besides the Salvation Army and Ebay, here are some other places to offload your old, unused items:
> NATIONAL LIBRARY BOARD
There are donation boxes at all public libraries where you can drop off adult fiction books. For other genres, donate directly to charities. To get a listing of the charities, log on to deposit.nl.sg: click on “About Donation”, then “To Donate” followed by “List of Non-profit Organisations”.
> BOOKS EXCHANGE WEBSITE www.secondhandbooks.com.sg
A local website set up by stay-at-home mum Aida Russell, it lets you swap, buy and sell books. Register for free and fill in the details of the books you are letting go of. The buyer pays for the postage before the seller sends the books over. A tip from Aida: for books you want to give away, price them as low as 5 cents.
> RAG AND BONE SERVICE ragnbone.com.sg, tel: 9625-7013
For electronics (even those that don’t work), try this 24-hour rag and bone service. Just make an appointment with Michael Santha to pick up items from your home; if you call in the afternoon, he may even be able to drop by as soon as one to two hours later. Pricing: From $2 for a computer monitor, $5 to $8 for a Pentium 4 computer, and $10 to $15 for a TV. As Michael exports these items, you’ll be doing your bit to reduce electronic waste.
