Green Ways Of Disposing Of Large Household Items

You’ve just purchased a new suite for your bedroom. It looks great. The only problem is you’ve got that old bed, carpet and dresser and a whole wardrobe to dispose.

Visualize a garbage dump covered with all the discarded household appliances and furniture. Discarding your leaking refrigerator which contains freon or your heat pump or air conditioner can be environmentally dangerous. The freon also known as chlorinated fluorocarbon (CFC) when emitted into the atmosphere can destroy the ozone layer creating a hole in the atmosphere where the sun’s harmful rays reach earth. Consequently, it causes sunburn, skin cancer and cataracts to humans and animals.

Studies reveal that in the UK 10 million pieces of furniture are thrown away while 3 million of these can be repaired and re-used. Re-using furniture or recycling saves energy associated with building or manufacturing a new piece of furniture or appliance. Eventually, this would reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and decrease its impact on global warming.

The best ways to protect the destruction of our earth is to re-use and recycle. It also goes to say that we shouldn’t be too materialistic in our pursuit of acquiring the trendiest, the most modern and most efficient appliances.

Recycling, repairing, re-using and proper disposing of large household items such as furniture, home appliances and electronics are environmentally friendly alternatives. This is a challenge ecologically aware people face when they opt to buy new one or when the old ones aren’t adequate to accommodate their new lifestyle. Have a baby grown out of its crib and needs a new bed? Or a teenage son needs a new trendy laptop.

Here are ways:

1. Recycle Be innovative.

Carefully take to pieces worn out furniture. Out of those pieces, build play houses for your kids or pets instead of buying new ones.

Advertise on the web. You can add some descriptions and the items you’d like to donate and where they can be picked up.

2. Sell your big stuff. Second hand stores would be happy to buy your furniture and appliances. They repair your broken cabinets, tables or beds. They re-paint and restore them to look new and nice. Then, sell them at a much affordable price. Some companies specialize in repairing and changing faulty parts of appliances and electronic equipment and then sell them. Both ways you earn from the effort. The environment would be spared too. People utilize the internet to search for affordable second hand items that are still functional. Advertise your furniture and appliances in the web. Attach a picture and a short description. Plus how much it cost and where it would be delivered or picked up.

3. Be of good heart, donate your items. International organizations solicit for furniture they can ship to third world countries that can help homeless families, hospitals, day care centers or schools. Search them on the web. Your cabinet can be useful as a medicine cabinet in some rundown clinic, your old repaired wooden bed can give comfort to elderly at night or your old plastic and steel chair can provide a comfortable seat for a school child.

That old broken chair and cabinet can do the trick. Instead of tossing them in the landfill, dismantle them carefully and with minimal carpentry skills you can fashion a playhouse for kitty, some birdhouses and play things for your grand kids.

Sell to second hand stores who buy big appliances and furniture that refurbish and repair them into good working conditions and sell them at a cheaper price.

4. Repair and re-use. Sofas, armchairs and beds can be re-upholstered instead of buying new ones. If your appliance breaks down the best is to have it checked by a skilled technician. Ask how much it cost and calculate how many years it would still be useful. Decide if it would be better repaired than when you need to buy a new one.

5. Donate and help disadvantaged people There are international organizations that assist third world countries in terms of donating much needed furniture. Your old dining table can be repaired and refurbished and be used by a nursing home in some third world country. Your chair can give lots of happy moments for a day care child in a poor nation. Look for their sites in the internet. They usually accept tables, desks, cabinets, book shelves, cribs, chairs, bassinets, office desks and other furniture made from wood, steel or plastic. You can donate in your own country too. Be on the lookout for your local organizations accepting donations of second hand furniture or household appliances or electronic equipment. Your computer may need some minor repairs and can be donated to a school that really needs it. Your old washing machine, television and CD player can mean much at a home for abandoned kids.

6. Some household appliances can’t be reused and recycled. They can be disassembled and the component parts such as plastic, steel, copper and other metals can be sold for recycling at a manufacturing company or factory. It would be safe to request the services of a professional technician if you’re aren’t skilled on this.

Additionally, you can contact companies who buy worn-out appliances and electronic items and dismantle and sell components to manufacturing factories.

7. Always remember that when you purchase a new appliance, furniture or electronic equipment, request the store where you can discard these items in the event they are worn out.

Our world has more junk that it can manage. We all want a self-sustaining earth for ourselves and future generation. Take that step to recycle, repair and re-use your old stuff to make that vision come true.

Writer Lillian M. Lurane of Serenity Movers promotes green moving nyc on behalf of prominent moving companies nyc.