What |
Where you can take these |
What they do with them |
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Art / craft materials – clean items for use in school art projects |
Reverse Art Truck (formerly Reverse Garbage Truck) Donations are by appointment only. Wed-Fri 9am-tpm, Sat 9am-1pm |
Collect rejects, seconds and factory offcuts for distribution to schools, early learning centres and the community. |
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Baby things |
Our Village (formerly St Kilda Mums) – 14 Winterton Rd, Clayton. See ‘Donate goods‘. Book a time to drop off donations. Op shops |
Our Village collects and rehomes essential baby and children’s items and works with social workers and maternal and child health nurses to rehome them to babies and children in need. Items must be good quality and safe. |
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Batteries |
Aldi, Coles, Woolworths and other supermarkets as well as Bunnings have collection bins at the front of all stores for AA, AAA, C, D, 9V and button batteries. Battery World collects all types of batteries. Libraries in Glen Eira & Stonnington also have collection boxes for batteries. |
Recycle |
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Bicycles |
Adult size bikes, BMX bikes and children’s bikes 24″ or larger can be taken any Bicycle Super Store (eg 1030 Dandenong Rd, Carnegie) who pass them on to Bicycles for Humanity (though not bikes that are covered in rust). Alternatively volunteers listed on the Bicycles for Humanity website can arrange for collection of bikes. See also: |
Send to Africa as sustainable transport to help break the poverty cycle. Bikes can travel twice as fast and carry 4 times the load as people on foot. Shipping containers in which they are sent become bike workshops, providing employment, skills, training and much more for communities. Wecycle & Back2Bikes rehome unwanted bikes with people who need them Dr Cranky’s works on getting kids riding bikes Brainwave Bikes donate, recycle and reuse bikes – while providing employment and traineeships for young jobseekers, including people with a disability, and raising money for Brainwave Australia. |
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Books |
Children’s books Good quality English books suitable for 2 – 15 year olds, fiction, story books, dictionaries and atlases, new or second hand: Australian Books for Children of Africa – see www.abca.org.au to organise a dropoff in Caulfield 123Read2Me – They have bin locations for book dropoffs in various sites around Melbourne. See their website https://123read2me.org.au/donate-books/ for locations. Other books: I Love Books 12 Arcade Rd, Mont Albert North Your local street library – boxes people set up outside their homes for people to leave and take books. |
ABCA provides second-hand books and writing materials for underprivileged schools in rural Africa. 123Read2Me gives books to Aussie kids who need them. I Love Books buys current-edition school textbooks for the Australian and Victorian Curriculum years 7-VCE including study guides, and also some University books in resalable condition. See the registration page on their website. |
|
Bras, new or preloved in good condition |
Support the Girls – dropoff location at Illusions Lingerie, 22 Puckle St, Moonee Ponds (Mon-Sat 9am-4pm). Mailing options also available. Note: Donations on hold as of 1st November 2025 |
‘Empowering vulnerable, disadvantaged and isolated women and girls with access to professionally fitted bras, essential products and the support needed to lead healthy, fulfilling lives.’ |
|
Bread tags (plastic) |
Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs NB 2026 will be the 8th and FINAL YEAR of accepting plastic bread tags for recycling. |
The tags have a good recycling value. 250kg of the tags bring in enough money to buy an entry level wheelchair for a needy person in South Africa. |
|
Cameras |
Camera Recycle (Brisbane) Libraries in Glen Eira and some other municipalities have collection boxes for small electronics including cameras. |
Camera Recycle Centre Australia accepts any unwanted digital and analogue film cameras, working or not. They follow an environmentally-friendly recycling process which includes the shredding and sorting of the e-waste, extraction of dust, separation of metal, scanning of waste stream, and preparing recycled items as raw materials. |
|
Cars & other vehicles |
Kids Under Cover |
They collect your car (minus the number plates as you need to cancel your registration first), pass it on to auctioneers who sell it. The proceeds go to Kids Under Cover who use it in their work to combat youth homelessness. Your donation is even tax deductible! |
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Clean clothing, bedding and backpacks in good condition (not underwear unless new with tags) |
Avalon Centre |
Avalon goes out on a regular basis distributing clothes, bedding and warmth through work and interaction with the homeless. |
|
Clothing not in good condition |
SCR Group Clothing dropoff – has bins next to several railway stations. H&M clothing stores accept clothing in any condition. Zara stores accept any kind of clothing or fabrics that you wish to recycle, as well as footwear, accessories and even jewelry. UPparel – charge $35/10kg Shoes in badly worn condition – Tread Lightly – collection boxes in many sports and shoe stores (limit: 5 pairs per person, per visit) |
H&M passes them on to their business partner I:CO who use them for rewear (as second-hand clothes), reuse (for other products such as cleaning cloths) or recycling (as textile fibres for things like insulation Zara – Donations are reused and transformed into other textile products such as cloths, or recycled into new fibres and materials for the construction and automotive sectors (seat filling, cushions, etc.) Garments that cannot be reused or recycled for reasons of hygiene, health and safety, or quality of the materials undergo a rigorous waste management procedure. ‘The aim of all these processes is to provide direct social support or to finance social projects that are developed or run by the non-profit organisations we work with.’ Tread Lightly takes sports shoes, thongs and slides, football boots, leather sports shoes, hiking boots, runners, golf shoes and formal leather school shoes and recycles them. |
|
Clothing suitable for job interviews |
Ready Set (not men’s suits) Tuesday to Thursday 9.30am-3.30pm |
Pass them on to people who are unemployed and going for job interviews, or starting work in a new job and can’t yet afford to buy appropriate clothes |
|
Computers & IT equipment |
B2C Community IT Recyclers
– A social enterprise of The Werx Foundation, offering work experience and training to people with disabilities disabilities and providing low-cost IT resources for agencies supporting disadvantaged people in our community. Ewastec: 9 Apsley Place. Seaford |
B2C is focussed on the recycling and refurbishment of donated, discarded or unwanted IT goods, and their re-marketing and re-deployment through its IT projects into communities in need. They re-use as much as possible, integrating PC components into refurbished computers. What can’t be re-used is dismantled into its constituent parts & sent for processing to responsible waste partners. |
| Corks |
Selected Dan Murphy’s and BWS stores (follow this link for details) |
The corks are collected for Endeavour Group’s ReCork natural cork stopper recycling pilot program where they repurposed to create cork-composite anti-fatigue mats. |
|
Cosmetics packaging |
Terracycle recycling program – drop off at David Jones. Terracycle accepts any brand of (empty) cosmetic, hair care or skin care packaging (though NOT aerosol cans or nail polish or nail polish remover bottles) |
The beauty packaging is cleaned and separated by material type. The fibres and plastics are recycled into raw formats that manufacturers use to make new products. |
|
DVDs, CDs, VHS, cassette tapes & cases, floppy disks |
Any library in Stonnington or Glen Eira Officeworks Stonnington Waste Transfer Station Monash Recycling & Waste Centre |
Recycle |
|
Electrical items |
Brotherhood of St Laurence Also Eastern Emergency Relief Network and West Welcome Wagon (see next entry below) |
Electrical items are safety-tested before being passed on to needy clients or sold. |
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Furniture (in good condition) & whitegoods (in good working order) + lots more |
Eastern Emergency Relief Network EERN (Mitcham) – 9am to 1pm, Mon-Fri Western Emergency Relief Network – WERN (Ravenhall) – Call 0476 104 736 |
DonateDirect connects Donors and Community Organisations to facilitate the transfer of donations to people in need. EERN & WERN provide emergency aid to those in need. West Welcome Wagon supports people seeking asylum and refugees. |
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Glasses (sight & reading) |
Lions Recycle for Sight – approach your local Lions Club or – mail to: Please remove the glasses from any cases and pop them in a padded bag or bubble wrap. Please do not send broken or scratched spectacles or non-prescription sunglasses. |
Cleans, grades and labels used spectacles for distribution in third world countries. |
|
Hearing aids |
Recycled Sound – c/- Rotary Club of Toorak, PO Box 42 Toorak 3142 SoundFair Hearing Bank – 1 Hamilton Place Mt Waverley Tel. 9510 1577 Lions Recycling for Sight Australia (see Glasses entry above – they also collect hearing aids) |
Provide recycled hearing aids to disadvantaged people – single income families, working poor, unemployed, refugees and people seeking asylum. |
|
Household goods in working order |
See also Furniture entry above and ‘Something else to give away‘ below |
DonateDirect connects Donors and Community Organisations to facilitate the transfer of donations to people in need. |
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Light globes – incandescent, compact fluorescent, downlight & fluorescent tubes |
Libraries in Glen Eira have collection boxes for fluorescent light globes and tubes. Stonnington Waste Transfer Station Monash Recycling & Waste Centre City of Whitehorse – see their website for dropoff points |
Recycled through CMA Ecocycle or similar organisations. Note: Handle fluorescent globes with great care – they contain mercury which can be very harmful to health. |
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Makeup, toiletries, dinner sets, cutlery, pots & pans, toasters, kettles – all new and unused |
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The Avalon Centre distributes makeup and toiletries to people who are homeless. They also help furnish homes they provide at minimal rent to people who have been homeless. |
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Material/fabric (including sheets, doona covers, pillowslips, etc) |
Boomerang Bags |
Boomerang Bags upcycles the material by sewing it to make reusable shopping bags |
|
Mattresses |
Fee-for-service collection: |
Break them down & use fabric to make carpet underlay & weed mats, timber frames for kindling and send springs to metal recyclers. |
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Mobile phones (and landline phones) |
Aussie Recycling Program (ARP) |
ARP recycles useable phones and on-sells them cheaply to third world countries, thus enabling people to afford a phone. Those that can’t be reused are dismantled and disposed of responsibly. Through Mobilemuster over 95% of the materials in a mobile phone are recovered. |
|
Musical instruments |
Guitars Gathering Dust (Altona, Preston, Footscray) |
Guitars Gathering Dust takes guitars in any condition, restores them and works with trusted music education providers that support children from disadvantaged backgrounds. |
|
Paint |
Paintback – see paintback.com.au for closest location (eg Monash Recycling & Waste Centre) |
The packaging and waste liquid are separated. The containers are recycled, subject to contamination. The solvent paint can be used as an alternative energy source. Water is separated from acrylic paint, with the by-product used in a variety of industrial applications significantly reducing landfill. |
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Pens and markers, highlighters, correction tape, liquid paper and more school stationery supplies |
Recycling |
|
|
Plastic wrap & cling wrap |
The major supermarkets Coles, Woolworth and Aldi have formed a Soft Plastic Taskforce that has 500 in-store collection points across Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Newcastle. Check your local supermarket. The Monash Recycling & Waste Centre (for Monash residents only) Glad Food Care Recycling Program accepts all brands of cling wrap as well as snack, sandwich and freezer bags. |
Use to make recycled plastic items such as park benches and furniture for schools and kindergartens. |
|
Polystyrene |
Monash Recycling & Waste Centre |
Recycle it |
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Printer cartridges & toner bottles |
Recycling boxes at Officeworks and participating Australia Post, Cartridge World, Harvey Norman, JB HiFi, The Good Guys, Office National stores and Local Council Recycling Depots. Businesses or departments using more than 3 cartridges per month can register online for Close the Loop’s FREE collection service. |
They are recycled through Close the Loop, who have invented several technologies to safely shred & recycle ink & toner cartridges, toner bottles & other print consumables including in the manufacture of asphalt. |
|
Sports equipment in reusable condition |
Sports shoes – clean, no holes & good soles*: Boots for All / Sport for all (Briar Hill) Op shops *Sports shoes in any condition can be taken for recycling by Tread Lightly. take them to sports and shoe stores (limit: 5 pairs per person, per visit) |
Shoes for Planet Earth provides sports shoes to those in need in Australia and overseas countries. Boots for All/Sport for All distributes quality, new and near-new sporting equipment to vulnerable Australians to enable sport participation. Tread Lightly takes sports shoes, thongs and slides, football boots, leather sports shoes, hiking boots, runners, golf shoes and formal leather school shoes and recycles them. |
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Toiletries (unopened, eg from hotels, airlines) |
Avalon Centre – 1936 Malvern Rd, Malvern East |
West Welcome Wagon provides for people seeking asylum The Avalon Centre distributes them to people who are homeless. |
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Towels, blankets, flat sheets, pillowcases, face washers |
If towels, blankets, sheets etc are in excellent condition, try West Welcome Wagon, Eastern Emergency Relief Network , The Avalon Centre, Donate Direct, or op shops Otherwise (i.e. if not in excellent condition): |
RSPCA uses these for bedding and other requirements for animals in their care. |
|
Used stamps (from envelopes) |
Australian Chapter of Lions International Stamp Club (LISC) Roger Sherrington … or ask your local Lions Club who may accept donations to send on to this address. |
The Australian Chapter is always seeking new and used postage stamps, philatelic material AND unwanted collections which are sorted and sold at auction with all proceeds donated to the Australian Lions Children’s Mobility Foundation. Please clip around the used stamps, leaving no less than 1/8″ and no more than 1/4″ around the stamp |
|
Xrays |
Stonnington & Glen Eira Councils collect these at libraries. Monash Recycling & Waste Centre also accepts them. |
X-ray recycling mainly aims to recover silver from both films and chemicals. The silver is then sold into the precious metals market. Residual chemicals are handled according to EPA requirements. Where possible they are recycled, or neutralised and disposed of as trade waste. |
Something else to give away?
Advertise your second-hand freebies on one of the following websites with a photo.
Could be just what someone wants:
Facebook: free stuff Melbourne
Facebook marketplace
If you find any issues with any of these, or have any more to add, please email your suggestions using our Contact form.
See also: Sustainability Victoria’s website for links to your local council’s waste and recycling services, and TerraCycle or Space&Time for recycling of various other products.
| The amount of electricity saved by recycling a single aluminium can is enough to run the average television set for three hours. |
| – Clean Up Australia |