Clutter is the enemy, and people who can't rid themselves of clutter are letting their weakness take over their lives. Or so a lot of telly programmes, self-help books and women's magazines would have you believe.
Apparently the key is to be ruthless: shove it all in a binbag, throw it away and don't look back. Bish-bash-bosh. Job done.
That's great and liberating advice in some ways, of course; but what if you happen to have an inconvenient modicum of environmental awareness? The truth is, there is no "away". If you shove everything into a plastic bag and bin it, most of it will still be causing damage to the earth long after you're dead. Unfortunately, knowledge like that can't be put back in its box.
So what's a green clutterholic to do? Once the option of a guilt-free mega-clearout is taken away, all the decluttering options available are like peeling a plaster off very slowly. There's no easy answer, but there are a few things you can do to make it all a bit more bearable.
- Buy less in the first place. When you shop, think about what you're really going to do with your purchase and how you're going to dispose of it when you've finished with it. It's easy to slip into a shopping trance where you're so bamboozled by the choices available that you end up buying the shiniest thing on impulse. If you feel yourself slipping into that trance, go for coffee.
- Buy smarter in the first place. For example, don't even think about buying non-rechargeable batteries, or you'll end up with the hassle of sorting out safe disposal. While you're trying and failing to find a recycling centre, the used batteries will slip into your kitchen drawer and mingle with all your other batteries for maximum hassle and confusion.
- If you're a deep green person already, the standard advice about taking unwanted stuff to the charity shop won't apply, because so much of it will be too tatty to re-sell. Charity shops already throw away an upsettingly large proportion of the donations they receive, partly because of space considerations and partly because of fussy customers. The general rule is that if you can't sell it on eBay, don't give it to a charity shop unless you're happy for it to be binned. That's where Freecycle comes in. It's amazing how many people will travel miles to get something for free, when they wouldn't pay 50p for the same thing in a charity shop. Yes, it's a hassle organising collection but at least you know everything is definitely going to a good home.
- If you've got books to get rid of, Green Metropolis is a good site for selling them on. It has its limitations - you get a flat rate of £3 only for every book - but it's a user-friendly, ethical site.
- Be aware that decluttering is one-tenth the action of physically sorting through your stuff, nine-tenths the fiddly tasks that spring from the sorting. The trick is to get the fiddly tasks that arise done before your next decluttering session. Write down each fiddly task as it occurs to you. When you reach seven items on your task list, stop sorting and start tidying up. Then give yourself a fortnight to do the seven items - one every other day. At the end of the fortnight, you can start sorting through another pile of clutter.