What to do with all the old stuff?

[Wild Flowers]

Okay, so I have learned much from this forum. Thank you all so much. But now I have tons of stuff that I don't need anymore. Bottles of shampoo, lotion, rolls upon rolls of paper towels and tp, we were costco people. Now we use that to buy baking soda and vinegar I feel kinda funny dumping all this stuff down the drain. So I was wondering if there was some way to get rid of it? Anything it can be used for? Or am I just being silly and dump it all?

[hubris]

For bottles of products, I either use them up and resolve not to buy more, or give them away to people who want them. Do you have guests often? If so, you could make shampoo available to them, or show them your stash and tell them that anything they want, they may take.

Paper products could probably be donated. Schools, churches, playgroup moms, etc would appreciate them. Family members who use them would probably also be happy to accept them. You might want to keep a little bit of TP on hand for the occasional guest (unless all your guests are cool with using cloth to wipe).

[hubris]

Another thought...a woman's shelter would probably appreciate your toiletry items.

[Amydoula]

I gave all my stuff away to various friends and people in need. Local food pantries collect personal care items in addition to food.

Amy

[Tummy]

http://www.freecycle.org/

[judybean]

I gave all my lotions and cosmectic concoctions to my sister. She'll use them... or pass them along to some of her friends. I do hold a bit of guilt 'furthering along' some of the nasty stuff (from learning so much here), but at the same time, it is being used and she is not buying more of said item and using up that much more packaging. I couldn't donate my stuff anywhere because a lot were 'used once' kinds of lotion and such.

[Persephone]

Yep, I was going to say Freecycle too.

[LaurenS]

Where I used to work, we would put stuff like partially used shampoos, lotions, cleaners, etc with a free sign in the kitchen. They wouldn't be there long.

When we moved into our current house, the last owner left us cleaning products that we wouldn't use. We took them to our food co-op and put them on the front proch with a free sign. They were gone by the next day.

Another option is a laudromat. I used to dumpster dive back before I had a child. When all the students leave town, they throw out enormous amounts of very useful items. After trying to give away partially used bottles of cleaners, detrergents, etc, I took the rest to the local laundromat and put a free sign on them. Again, they were swiped up real fast.

Lauren