We have a plastic bag by the front door. It sits silently in the porch. Every time there is a thing either of us sees that neither of us wants or needs it goes in the bag (if it will fit). This, when full, gets walked (usually) to a charity shop (goodwill if you’re in the USA). Its a simple thing and its surprisingly easy to fill such a bag. There have been heaps (literally) of clothes and bric-a-brac that have gone forever from our home through this simple action.
Like most humans, trapped in our own space during the pandemic, I started to notice stuff. More realistically, stuffed. The living room, stuffed, the bedroom, stuffed and especially the garage, stuffed. Now I know a lotta people did the same because our local charity shops had a booking system for drop off!
As a student I lived in the charity shop. There was a place, in a basement, in Manchester that had stalls full of second hand clothing dropped in by hotels and cruise companies (old livery, heavily customised was very ‘in’ in the late punk/early New Romantic era). That place became Aflecks Palace, now a Mancunian legend. You could still get seriously good quality shirts with the button on collars still available, not that we wore those. Shirt tails hanging out over skinny, often stripy (fluorescent yellow and black) jeans…ah, those were the days. I usually teams this with a tail coat. I still own two tail coats though my jeans are less skinny!
For a long time I forgot the charity shop. A little cash in your pocket and you go for new. Sad really. I always donated though. A thing I liked to do when running youth groups was a clothes swap. The kids would bring items that were still wearable but that they were tired of. You brought six things you got six tickets. Each ticket was worth one item. Any unspent could be kept for the next swap but they were usually lost. Unused clothing went to the next attic sale stall we ran to raise funds for the club.
It was always a recycling thing but I never really thought about it that way. I’m an Environmental Science graduate so should have known better. I have some amazing shirts (I like a loud shirt) gleaned from the racks at Cancer Research or the British Heart Foundation. I am very lucky to have more than I need. Yes, there are times I’ll check if there’s a trade in to be had on a book or game. Yes, I know there are apps to sell if you need the money. We took a pile of board games to our local swap shop yesterday. They couldn’t use them so there was no money to be had. (I’m not a saint) but rather than bring them home we sauntered up to the next available charity shop and dropped them off. Someone out there gets a good quality board game and we have a little more space.
These days there’s always a bag or a box by the door. It gets full more often than I care to think about.
ffiftypluses 