Clutter and Recycling / Waste -

An opportunity to increase recycling rates, reduce landfill and create committed recyclers

 
You may have heard about professional de-clutterers before, but you may not be aware of the relevance this has to recycling and waste.
 
Let me explain.
 
The Clutter Clearing Consultancy was set up after the founder, Clare Baker worked for the waste and recycling organisation WRAP back in 2003.  After working there she realised that there was a need for people who have extreme clutter to be introduced to the concept of recycling.  She knew, from personal experience, that if you have a lot of clutter your priority is often to get rid of it or keep it, rather than to think about what and how you get rid of it. 
 
 
 
People with clutter will often simply bag up their unwanted clutter and either put it out for the bin men or take it to their local tip. They haven’t got the time, patience or inclination to separate the waste from the things they can recycle, reuse or pass to a charity shop.
 
When Clare set up the company and being a committed recycler herself as a result of her time at WRAP, Clare realised that for many people, they needed help with accommodating the space and having a simple system in their home to enabled them to recycle, especially if they didn’t have comingled collections.
 
Clare and her team work closely with all clients to raise awareness of the reduce, reuse and recycle message wherever possible so that the amount of waste generated by a home that is being de-cluttered can be minimised.
 
 
 
After her time at WRAP, Clare combined her natural skill for being organised with my desire to help people at a practical level to create more space and reduce the amount of waste in their homes by helping them clear their clutter and at the same time increasing their level of recycling by making them aware of what and how to recycle, plus ways to reuse their unwanted clutter.
 
 
 
What this means at a practical level is that having helped people with their clutter over the past 6 years Clare and her team of consultants have had an opportunity to see what challenges people have about what to do with their unwanted clutter, and this has enabled her to raise awareness, influence and help them at a practical level with setting up a system in their homes that works for them to enable them to recycle not only their unwanted clutter, and their day to day recyclable material.
 
This means that by helping them with their clutter, Clare and her team have been able to influence them about their waste and recycling.
 

A regional enterprise that we contacted in 2008 raised the issue about helping people clear their clutter leading to ‘more donations for CRNs but surely also to more waste’. 

From our experience the answer is no, it doesn’t lead to more waste AS LONG AS the person doing the de-cluttering has practical help with the sorting and distribution of their unwanted clutter into the recycling, shredding (to protect their identity), charity donations, and waste streams.

If they don't have practical help and guidance, or access to this practical help and guidance then yes, it does lead to an increase in waste.

The decision is therefore would you prefer people to have a weekend blitz and put all their unwanted clutter into the landfil waste stream, or provide those who want and need help with that practical hands on help and not only increase the recycling rate amongst people de-cluttering, but also increase the number of committed recyclers who will continue to recycle beyond their initial de-clutter?

When the person assisting householder with the de-clutter is aware of the reduce, reuse, recycle message, other options for what to do with unwanted clutter and has the appropriate knowledge and information available to guide people in the most appropriate direction then you are in fact reducing the amount of landfil waste, increasing the recycling rate, increasing the number of committed recyclers in the long term and increasing the success rate of any ongoing campaigns.
 

De-cluttering only lead to more waste when people try to do them without any help.

 
Iif you would like to explore possible ways to reaching householders at a practical level to help them to recycle more and become committed recyclers then I would recommend, from experience, offering to help them with their clutter at a practical level. 
 
Of course when offices have a de-clutter, 9 times out of 10 they also find that by the end of it they’ve often found a lot of unused stationary and empty files because the contents have been shredded and/or recycled.  This means that companies can save even more money by not having to buy more stationary because they have just added to their stocks as well as helping the environment by not needing to buy more.

If you would like to discuss what we've learnt about householders with respect to their de-cluttering, waste and recycling and discuss ways that we can support your recycling / waste minimisation / awareness campaigns, then call us on 01295 275030.

 

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