How do I reuse things instead of throwing them away?

Reuse is only worthwhile if the item actually gets used. The honest test is whether you have a specific job for it and somewhere to keep it. Without both, saving things is just deferred disposal with storage costs attached.

What you'll need

• Storage space (optional)
• Scissors (optional)

Step by step

1. Apply the test before keeping anything.Do I have a specific use, and a place to keep it? Both, or it goes. This is what separates reuse from hoarding.
2. Keep glass jars for food storage.Genuinely useful for dry goods, leftovers, homemade stock and freezing. Keep a sensible number, not every jar that passes through.
3. Cut worn cotton clothing into cleaning cloths.Old T-shirts and towels beat kitchen roll for most cleaning and cost nothing. Remove seams, buttons and zips first.
4. Save cardboard for the garden.Laid on beds under mulch it suppresses weeds and breaks down within a season. Remove tape and staples first.
5. Reuse containers for organising, not for storing more clutter.Shoe boxes as drawer dividers, jars for screws, tins for pens. Useful in a system; clutter without one.
6. Compost what can be composted.Vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, tea leaves, cardboard, paper. It diverts a large proportion of household waste and produces something useful.
7. Repair before replacing.A sewn seam, a glued handle or a replacement part is usually faster and cheaper than buying again, and it is the highest form of reuse.
8. Pass on rather than store indefinitely.Charity shops, local giveaway groups, tool libraries. Something being used by someone else is better than it sitting in your loft.

Tips

• Set a limit — a specific box or shelf. When it is full, nothing new goes in without something coming out.
• Reuse that requires effort every time rarely lasts. The ideas that stick are the ones that are easier than the alternative.
• Repairing something well is more satisfying and more valuable than finding a clever new use for it.

Common mistakes

• Saving things without a specific use — It becomes clutter that occupies space and mental load, and most of it is eventually thrown away anyway.
• Keeping every jar and container — The supply is endless and the demand is not. Keep a set number and recycle the rest.
• Storing broken things intending to fix them — Set a deadline. If it is not repaired within a month, it will not be.

Questions people ask