Reduce, reuse, recycle - Re:Home

A while ago, I decided we just had too much stuff. I mean, I knew this of course, I have eyes and could see how shelves were too full and our basement storage was overflowing. But somehow we managed to keep the stuff under control - and out of site - so that the nagging feeling that we had too much was kept mostly comfortably at bay.

But then one day I was putting away laundry, and found a whole stack of kids shirts that I had forgotten about. Some of them were new. They were in the back row of the clothes cabinet. And they were already too small for my son.

Somehow we had so much stuff, that we managed to never miss a whole stack of new clothes.

It made me feel sad and guilty, that I waste resources like that without even realising it.

What a hypocrite I felt I was: I preach about being sustainable and reducing our impact on the planet to my family, and finding these clothes made me feel like a fraud and a failure. How could I not manage our stuff better? Good behavior starts with me and starts at home.

I also knew we weren't the only family with perfectly good things in our home that we didn't need or weren't using and which could be used and appreciated by someone else.

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So instead of trying to sell the items, I wanted to give them away.

A few neighbors and I got together and threw a Re:Home party. We collected our perfectly good items - baby and kids clothes, toys, and home items - and gave them away to anyone who needed or wanted them, for free.

Amazingly, it wasn't an easy as I thought it would be.

The first 45 minutes of our Re:Home party we sat there basically by ourselves and wondered if all the work preparing, cleaning, folding, and staging our two rooms full of items was for nothing. People were skeptical. "Why are you giving away things, what's wrong with them?" "Are you sure I can just take this?"

Feedback trickled back to us afterwards that it made people feel weird, even uncomfortable, to take things for free.

Funnily enough, it never occurred to me how other people would feel accepting things for free. My aim was to re:home perfectly good things and make someone else happy, while also clearing out my storage and not directly creating more waste. Circular economy, if you will.

In the end, we managed to give away about 60% of the things we had on offer. That felt really good. Through feedback we learned what we could do differently in the future; such as offer a donations box for people to leave money if they want to. We could use that to pay for renting the community center where we hosted the Re:Home party and if there were enough left over, we could make a small donation to a local charity.

We also met some really nice people from our neighborhood and sparked an interest in the Re:Home idea. For me, that awareness raising alone made it worth the effort.

Closing with a thought, that although slightly grand - I mean I am not giving away millions to fight climate change or stop illegal poaching - does sum up how it feels to clear out things from my home and give them a new home with someone who will use and appreciate them.

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“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”

Maya Angelou

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