I have been cleaning and organizing the garage this week and have gotten rid of tons of stuff. Dh even joined in and got rid of some tools. I just wonder if the thrift store puts it out or dumps it in the trash.

Recycling oh yeah.
But I'd rather do it in Mobile than up here in MA.
These folks are so itchy about their rules, and it is difficult to get your house cleaned out.

Plus, we now have all these danged tree limbs which fell during the storm this last week, whole tree tops broken out, and there is NO collection of them by the municipality. It is so contrary to my experience in Alabama, where clearing away debris after a storm is a major effort on the part of local government.

In Mobile, we have household GARBAGE collection every Friday (in my neighborhood). And, twice a month, or 26 times a year, or every other TUESDAY, we have "trash" pickup. Recycling is not picked up unless it is hazardous or you take it to the Keep Mobile Beautiful site.

I also keep all my yard stuff, leaves and grass clippings and household organics in my compost pile. I am now learning to use the cardboard boxes (corrugating medium to be exact), as a deterrent to weeds when I create a new flower bed. I use newspaper for bird cage bottoms, and I even take my shredded paper of mostly junk mail and account statements and put it into the composting pile. I hate to get boxes with styrofoam peanuts in them, but I now use them in the bottoms of big flower pots instead of rocks, they never decompose and don't add to the weight. The roots grow better I think, because the soil does not compact so badly.

But as I am packing up stuff to clean out this MA cape, I have had a LOT of trouble disposing of things. The charity that came by refused to take some stuff, and there it sat until DH dragged it to the back yard....again.....

Now I will be calling a consignment shop to take some of the nicer pieces of furniture we cannot use down south, and which DH is not willing to turn loose of now while we have a PODS about to be delivered for our use in moving.

Boy, when you've lived in a house for almost 50 years, you stash stuff everywhere, and don't realize how much space it consumes until you start pulling out and giving it some air and light. DH has been in his one-car garage for several weeks and even months, and it looks no better than when he started. He has some really fine tools, and has given many of them to family members but it will be hard to clear all the wrenches and plyers and saws and drill bits and saw blades hanging on three walls of the garage. Oh yeah, and part of one wall is solid cabinet drawers. I'd love to have them, but they were built in 1948 with the original kitchen, and solid wood, attached to the wall, stored all sorts of dirty tools. And every time he needed a container for some screws or bolts or washers, he must have taken them from the kitchen upstairs, because I find many pyrex bowls, stainless steel mixing bowls, wooden drawers, you name it. And now we are having to clean up the mess of a week w/o power, and see if we can really get out of here before Thanksgiving.

Is this a RANT? Sorry.....just had to tell someone how...

Oh man ML, that garage sounds like a huge project. I feel your pain on the tree limbs. What do they expect people to do with them? Where we are, we could probably burn our limbs, but the county has a trash off twice a year, fall and spring, where you can take any kind of trash, from tree limbs to appliances. Otherwise, we just have to call for oversized pickup. Most of the counties around here had tree limb pick up after the last storm.

I love this! Thank you so much for posting. I completely agree that it is a great time to donate and make sure that what we're using is really valuable and give to those that are less fortunate.
I've really been enjoying these articles about how to properly recycle some of the bigger or more hazardous materials that you need to get rid of.
Lose it or use it series
http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/query/use-it-or-lose-it

Oh boy, I got lost there again. Ellenm, the HOUZZ site always gets me going. Thanks for the link, I missed it.

Here it is made clickable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Use it or lose it.....Houzz

We have a shed that holds the garbage can, small mower, and all the garden tools. The original ca. 1978 roof was rotting away, so two weekends ago we ripped it off and replaced it with new decking and a metal roof. That also gave me a chance to go through there and really clean it out. There were things that belonged to the POs that we just never dealt with in 4+ years. It felt so good to do that I went on to the 20 x 20 barn/workshop and got it straightened out and organized.

I've recently opened an office for my business, so I found places in the office for the odd tables and a desk and chair that had been gathering dust and mildew in the barn. And there was lots of trash. Tiny scraps of wood, 30-year-old lengths of PVC pipe, bits of fencing, etc. We took advantage of the landfull's free day and got rid of all that.

We're in Alabama, too, but in an unincorporated area. We pay a private company for household garbage removal once a week. But there is no brush/trash/white goods removal available where we are. You have to get it to the landfill yourself.