What can you do with things you no longer need?
Consider these alternatives to disposing to landfill:
What |
Where you can take these |
What they do with them |
Art / craft |
Reverse Art Truck Tues-Fri 9am – 5pm , Sat 9am – 1pm |
Collect rejects, seconds and factory offcuts for distribution to schools, early learning centres and the community. |
Baby things |
St Kilda Mums – 14 Winterton Rd, Clayton. See ‘Donate things‘. Opening hours generally 10am Melbourne Gemach – contact Rochi in Ripponlea 0413 956 384 |
Receive requests from Maternal Health Nurses and local social service agencies on behalf of families in need. Then try to meet or exceed each request with quality pre-loved donations. |
Batteries |
Aldi and Officeworks have
Battery World collects all types of Libraries in Glen Eira & Stonnington also have collection boxes for batteries. |
Recycle |
Bicycles |
Any Bicycle Super Store |
Send to Africa as sustainable transport to help break the poverty cycle. Bikes can travel twice as fast and |
Bras & |
Uplift Project – 4 Webb St, Caulfield |
Send them to disadvantaged |
Bread tags |
Bread Tags for Wheelchairs |
Made of high impact polystyrene, the tags have a good recycling value. 200kg of the tags bring in enough money to buy a wheelchair for a needy person in South Africa. |
Cars & other |
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! |
Books |
Children’s books: OR Other books: I Love Books The Footpath Library Your local street library – boxes people |
ABCA provides second-hand books and writing materials for underprivileged schools in rural Africa. Note: Schools without Books sends books to schools in third world countries – board books, |
Clean clothing in good condition |
Avalon Centre |
Avalon goes out on a regular basis distributing clothes, bedding and warmth through work and interaction with the homeless. |
Clothing not in |
Brotherhood of St Laurence Make a Wish Foundation has bins in many Westfield malls SCR Group Clothing dropoff – has bins next to several railway stations. H&M clothing stores accept clothing in any condition |
Brotherhood passes them on to Melbourne Cleaning Cloths. Make A Wish Foundation passes them on to 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 |
Clothing suitable for job interviews |
Ready Set – 24 Eastern Rd |
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 & |
B2C Community IT Recyclers
|
B2C accepts all forms of IT equipment and peripherals except printers, regardless of age, specs or |
DVDs, CDs, VHS, |
Stonnington Council – drop off at: Prahran |
Recycle |
Electrical items |
Brotherhood of St Laurence |
Electrical items are safety-tested before resale. |
Furniture (in |
Eastern Emergency Relief Network Donations can be delivered to their warehouse 9am to 1pm Monday to Friday or volunteers can collect from Cities of Whitehorse, Manningham, Maroonday, Knox, Monash & Boroondara. |
Provide emergency aid to those in need. See their About us page |
Glasses (sight & |
OR Temple Beth Israel OR Care With Quality |
Cleans, grades and labels used spectacles for distribution in third world countries. Remove the lenses and send frames to Israel to provide glasses for those in need. |
Hearing aids |
SoundFair |
Provide recycled hearing aids to disadvantaged people – single income families, working poor, unemployed, |
Household goods |
See also ‘Something else to give away’ |
Matches items being given away |
Light globes- |
Libraries in Glen Eira have Stonnington Waste Transfer Station Monash Waste Transfer City of Whitehorse – see their website for dropoff points |
Recycled through CMA Ecocycle – see how in Note: Handle fluorescent |
Makeup, |
Impact for Women |
Make ‘bags of love’ to give to women escaping violent family situations. |
Material/fabric |
Boomerang Bags |
Upcycle the material buy sewing it to make reusable shopping bags |
Mattresses |
Drop off at the Resource OR Fee-for-service collection for |
Break them down & use |
Mobile phones |
Aussie Recycling Program (ARP) OR MobileMuster |
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 |
Paint |
Paintback – see paintback.com.au for |
Separate packaging and waste liquid, then recycle containers and treat waste paint for energy recovery for solvent and liquid/solid separation for water-based paint. |
Pens and markers |
Officeworks – selected stores |
Recycling |
Plastic wrap |
Coles and Woolworths have collection bins for these at the front of their stores. This is passed on to RedCycle. NB NOT cling wrap. |
Use to make recycled plastic items such as park benches and furniture for schools and kindergartens. |
Polystyrene |
|
Recycle it |
Printer |
Recycling boxes at participating Officeworks, Australia Post, Harvey Norman, JB HiFi and Good Guys stores. Or phone the Cartridges Hotline (1800 24 24 73). Businesses |
Recycle them through Close the Loop, who have invented several technologies to safely shred & recycle ink & toner cartridges, toner bottles & other print consumables. |
Sports equipment |
VAFA Umpires Association rooms |
Distribute quality, new and near-new sporting equipment to vulnerable Australians to enable sport |
Towels, blankets, |
RSPCA Adoption Centres |
Use for bedding and other requirements for animals in their care. |
Used stamps (from |
Women of the University Fund OR |
Trim and sort stamps, then sell to local stamp dealers and stamp collectors. |
Whitegoods – |
Whitegoods Refurbishment & Recycling Program (Kids off the Kerb) |
Train young people to test, repair and clean the used whitegoods & electronics. Refurbished goods are sold with proceeds going back into the program. Otherwise they are used for spare parts or scrap metal recycling. |
Xrays |
Stonnington Council collects Glen Eira Council libraries also have collection boxes for these. |
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 |
Something au.ziilch.com (note ii) |
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 http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/services-and-advice/households/waste-and-recycling for tips for
recycling and/or safe disposal of televisions, whitegoods, paint and toxic
household chemicals, 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 |