Spring Cleaning Tips To Remove the Clutter From Your Home

By Tom Watson – King County EcoConsumer*

Winning the war against clutter can be tremendously satisfying. That may be why a whole industry has developed around fighting clutter.

You can see it on Oprah, and you can ooh and ah at the worst cases on shows like Hoarders. You can even pay an organization coach to get your clutter under control – if you’re willing to pay up to $50 an hour.

But you can also just take a few easy steps on your own. Because cutting clutter means reducing waste, the King County Recycle More. It’s Easy to Do. program has designated May 9-13 as Spring Cleaning Week. You can find lots of resources at www.kingcounty.gov/recyclemore, but here are a few to get you going.

Let’s start in the home office, often the most cluttered room in the home:

- Jettison junk mail. Those foot-high piles of papers in your office include a lot of junk mail, don’t they? Catalogs and coupons and fliers. Aiiee! Get in the habit of either filing incoming mail or putting it directly in the recycling bin. Better yet, get off of mailing lists by using the free non-profit service www.CatalogChoice.org.

- Pitch packing material. Get rid of that Styrofoam stuff sitting in the corner because you don’t know what to do with it. To find stores that will accept your clean used packing peanuts (they reuse them), go to www.loosefillpackaging.com or call the polystyrene industry’s Peanut Hotline at 800-828-2214. For those bulky Styrofoam packing chunks, recycling options are limited, but V & G Styro Recycle in Renton (www.styrorecycle.com) will take them at no charge.

- Unplug your electronic waste. Under the state’s E-Cycle Washington program, the electronics industry pays the recycling cost for computers, monitors and TVs, so you don’t have to! Find recycling and reuse locations and info (you may have to pay to recycle some items, like printers)  at www.ecycleWA.org and www.takeitbacknetwork.org.

Now let’s zip into the kitchen and cut clutter there:

- Free your food. You know those canned or packaged goods just taking up space in your cupboard, that you’re never going to use? If they’re still in good shape, donate them to food banks. With perfect timing, the annual food drive at your home by mail carriers is Saturday, May 14. See www.helpstampouthunger.com for details.

- Corral your containers. Does it seem like your Tupperware-type containers are breeding? Weed them out! Turn them into containers for your kids’ crayons or other supplies.

Let’s end with a few quick tips for the rest of the house:

 - Donate, donate, donate! Thrift stores can really use your stuff, and your donations often benefit non-profits.

 - Let recycling multiply. To capture all your paper and other recyclables, make sure you have recycling bins in the home office, kids’ rooms, bathroom, even the garage and basement.

These tips are just a start. You probably have your own great ideas, and visit www.kingcounty.gov/recyclemore for more. Reduce, reuse, recycle, and rein in the clutter.

*Tom Watson manages the EcoConsumer public education program for King County Solid Waste Division. As part of this effort, Tom writes a column for The Seattle Times and appears on local TV including regular EcoConsumer segments on theKOMO4 TV news. www.KCEcoConsumer.com