Where To Take Your Spring Cleaning | How To Get Rid Of White Goods

What better time than Spring to hit reset on your home and clear out those things you never use? Get rid of white goods? Old furniture? Clothes? Spring cleaning is the seasonal trend that never dies and it turns out it could bring you more benefits than a bit of extra space around your home.

Studies show clutter around our homes is having a staggering impact on both our mindsets and our wallets. Four out of ten Australians admit that clutter in their home makes them feel anxious, and on average, we’re each spending $1226 each year on items that never get used. One of our biggest money wasting habits is buying items we already own, simply because it couldn’t be found amongst the clutter in your home.

Nearly just as bad as not getting started on decluttering your home at all, is bagging up unwanted clothes and books or moving old furniture to the garage and never taking it any further. GoGet vans are a great option to get bulky furniture and white goods to a donation or recycling centre.

To make it even easier, we’ve rounded up the best places to take your things when you’ve finished Spring cleaning so you can enjoy a clutter and stress-free home.

Op Shops

Charity based organisations such as St Vincent de Paul, The Salvation Army and The Red Cross Shop can take a huge array of items from around your home off your hands. The best part is, they sell them on and use the money to fund charitable endeavours. Any clothes, accessories, toys, homewares or kitchen items, books, CDs and DVDs can be donated to an op shop granted they’re in good, reusable condition.

Some op shops can even take old furniture or working electrical items and appliances, but it’s always best to call your local op shop ahead to ensure they can accept these items.

In-store recycling programs

If your clothes, manchester or other fabric-based items aren’t in a condition to donate, you can drop them to recycling centres. Fashion giants H&M and Zara have jumped on the sustainability bandwagon by introducing their own clothing recycling programs.

H&M stores around Australia have collection bins that allow you to drop off bags of your unwanted clothes and textiles, of any brand, in any condition, and in return for your charitability, you’ll be rewarded with a voucher to spend in store. The company uses the clothes to aid charities across the world.

Similarly, you can take your old clothes into Zara who then donates them, recycles them or creates new textiles from them. In Australia, they work closely with The Red Cross.

Swedish furniture giant Ikea has implemented a furniture buy-back service (which GoGet has actually partnered with)  where you can drop old Ikea furniture that’s still in good condition back to your preferred IKEA store, and is available Australia-wide.  To help you get your old IKEA furniture off the streets and out of landfill, GoGet is offering up to 20% off your booking to support the IKEA furniture Buy Back service. This GoGet offer is available in all IKEA stores in Australia (excluding Perth).

Furniture Recycling Centres 

Savvy environmentalists will take your trash and turn it into someone else’s treasure. There are centres dotted across Australia that will take your unwanted furniture items including beds, tables, dressers, couches and dining chairs and upcycle it to be sent to a new and loving home. A quick google will show you businesses in your local area.

The Bower Reuse and Repair Centre has two Sydney locations that not only take your donated furniture items to upcycle them but also run workshops to teach you how to repair and refurbish them yourself. You can then choose to donate the item or sell it.

In Melbourne you can take your furniture to RECOVER, a social enterprise that creates jobs for people from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds. They’ll upcycle your furniture to sell it and use the profits to further support their charitable endeavours. 

So, now that you’ve got a few good ideas of where you can take your items to prevent them hanging around your home for the next few months, you’ve got no excuse not get to your Spring cleaning! Jump over to our Van Hire page to learn more about using our GoGet Vans to transport your old things.