What |
Where you can take these |
What they do with them |
|
Art / craft materials – clean items for use in school art projects |
Reverse Art Truck (formerly Reverse Garbage Truck) |
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 until 3pm Mon-Fri, or 10.30am-1pm Saturdays but check the website especially during school holidays. Melbourne Gemach – contact Rochi in Ripponlea 0413 956 384 Op shops |
St Kilda Mums receives 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. Check their website for what they can and can’t accept. |
|
Batteries |
Aldi and Officeworks have collection bins at the front of all stores for AA, AAA, C, D & 9V batteries. Battery World collects all types of batteries. Libraries in Glen Eira & Stonnington also have collection boxes for batteries. |
Recycle |
|
Bicycles |
Any Bicycle Super Store (eg 1030 Dandenong Rd, Carnegie). Adult size bikes, BMX bikes and children’s bikes 24″ or larger go 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 |
|
Books |
Children’s books Fiction & non-fiction books other than history books, published after 2000: 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 Melbourene. See their website https://123read2me.org.au/ 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. |
|
Bras, new or preloved in good condition |
Support the Girls – dropoff locations only in Qld, NSW & ACT atm. See their checklist online. NB Uplift Project – no longer collects in Australia |
‘Empower women with dignity and respect’ by providing bras to vulnerable and disadvantaged women. |
|
Bread tags (plastic) |
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. |
|
Cameras |
Libraries in Glen Eira have collection boxes for these |
|
|
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! |
|
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 good condition |
Brotherhood of St Laurence stores 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. The Zara store in the city also accepts any kind of clothing or fabrics that you wish to recycle, as well as footwear, accessories and even jewelry. UPparel – charge $25/10kg and then give you a $25 credit towards purchases from them. |
Brotherhood passes them on to Melbourne Cleaning Cloths. Make A Wish Foundation passes them on to King Cotton Australia 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 – All garments which are 100% cotton, wool or polyester can be recycled into new fabrics. The rest of the clothing is turned into materials for the construction and automotive sectors. 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. |
|
Clothing suitable for job interviews |
Ready Set – 24 Eastern Rd, South Melbourne |
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 |
Nucleus Computer Donations (Carnegie) B2C Community IT Recyclers Officeworks also has a free nationwide recycling service for TVs, computers, printers and computer peripherals. Equipment Recycling Network Inc (based in Ringwood) |
Nucleus Computer Donations sends donations of computers, laser printers and mobile phones to needy international communities to support their schools, education and vocations.
B2C accepts all forms of IT equipment and peripherals except printers, regardless of age, specs or working condition and work to prevent these from entering landfill. 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. ERNi supports people with disabilities. |
| Corks |
Port Phillip Resource Recovery Centre |
Recycle |
|
Cosmetics packaging |
Terracycle recycling program – drop off at David Jones |
They accept empty plastic bottles & pumps from skincare & hair care, empty foundation bottles, compacts, lipsticks & gloss, eyeshadow palettes, mascara, eye & brow liners, caps & tubes in regular, travel & sample sizes. |
|
DVDs, CDs, VHS, cassette tapes & cases, floppy disks |
Any library in Stonnington or Glen Eira Stonnington Waste Transfer Station Monash Waste Transfer and Recycling Station |
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 resale. |
|
Furniture (in good condition) & whitegoods (in good working order) + lots more |
Eastern Emergency Relief Network Friends of Refugees (Springvale) |
Donate Direct links to a charity of community service provider that needs your stuff for a disadvantaged individual they are assisting. EERN provides emergency aid to those in need. See their About us page. West Welcome Wagon supports people seeking asylum. Friends of Refugees collects all kinds of household furniture to assist people seeking asylum. |
|
Glasses (sight & reading) |
Lions Recycle 4 Sight – approach your local Lions Club or – mail to: |
Cleans, grades and labels used spectacles for distribution in third world countries.
Respecs removes the lenses and sends frames to Israel to provide glasses for those in need. |
|
Hearing aids |
Recycled Sound – 5 High St, Prahran SoundFair – 1 Hamilton Place Mt Waverley OR 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 |
Matches items being given away – televisions, computers, bedding, mobile phones, kitchen appliances and white goods – with charities and Community Service Providers who pass them on at no charge to disadvantaged people who need them. |
|
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 Waste Transfer City of Whitehorse – see their website for dropoff points |
Recycled through CMA Ecocycle – see how in this brochure or similar organisations. Note: Handle fluorescent globes with great care – they contain mercury which can be very harmful to health. |
|
Makeup, toiletries, dinner sets, cutlery, pots & pans, toasters, kettles – all new and unused |
Impact for Women |
Make ‘bags of love’ to give to women escaping violent family situations. |
|
Material/fabric (including sheets, doona covers, pillowslips, etc) |
Boomerang Bags |
Upcycle the material buy sewing it to make reusable shopping bags |
|
Mattresses |
Drop off at the Port Phillip Resource Recovery Centre, corner White & Boundary Streets, South Melbourne, or ask your council about a hard rubbish collection |
Break them down & use fabric to make carpet underlay & weed mats, timber frames for kindling and send springs to metal recyclers |
|
Mobile phones (and landline phones) |
Aussie Recycling Program (ARP) Landline phones and mobiles can be recycled through collection stations at Glen Eira libraries. |
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. |
|
Paint |
Paintback – see paintback.com.au for closest location |
They 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 collect these for recycling. Looking to roll out the program nationally over the next year. |
Recycling |
|
Plastic wrap |
Coles and Woolworths have collection bins for these at the front of their stores. This is passed on to RedCycle. NB only some brands of cling wrap. See https://www.redcycle.net.au/what-to-redcycle/ for what can and can’t be recycled. |
Use to make recycled plastic items such as park benches and furniture for schools and kindergartens. |
|
Polystyrene |
Monash Waste Transfer |
Recycle it |
|
Printer cartridges & toner bottles |
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 or departments using more than 3 cartridges per month can register online for their FREE collection service. |
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 in reusable condition |
Tennis balls & racquets: Sports shoes: See also www.bootsforall.org.au ??? Op shops |
KTA provides racquets and tennis balls for disadvantaged children throughout Australia. Shoes for Planet Earth provides sports shoes to those in need in Australia and overseas countries. Boots for All used to distribute quality, new and near-new sporting equipment to vulnerable Australians to enable sport participation. Not sure if they are still operating. |
|
Toiletries (unopened, eg from hotels, airlines) |
Provide for people seeking asylum |
|
|
Towels, blankets, flat sheets, pillowcases, face washers |
If towels, blankets, sheets etc are in excellent condition, try also op shops, The Avalon Centre, Eastern Emergency Relief Network or Donate Direct Otherwise: |
RSPCA uses these for bedding and other requirements for animals in their care. |
|
Used stamps (from envelopes) |
Women of the University Fund OR The Leprosy Mission OR Used Stamps, Kidney Health Australia |
Trim and sort stamps, then sell to local stamp dealers and stamp collectors. |
|
Whitegoods – especially fridges, freezers, washing machines & dryers |
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 & Glen Eira Councils collect these at libraries. Monash Waste Transfer Station 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:
au.ziilch.com (note ii)
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 |