Shedding Pounds

If there’s one thing that bothers me… actually, a lot of things bother me, but one of them is waste. I wouldn’t say I’m as vigilant about it as I could or should be, but I like to live by the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle.

With that outlook, I refused to throw away the bags and bags of clothes, linens and shoes I’ve been accumulating over the years, knowing that textiles can be recycled, if not donated. I’ve had some of these piles for two years now, and they’ve just grown with time. It was starting to become that deep secret you keep locked in the closet. No, literally, I had stuffed all of these things throughout the closets in my apartment (it didn’t all fit in any one closet), and lived my life as if they weren’t there.

Except they were.

This year, I slowly but surely started to chip away at the pile (probably more slowly than surely). But I’m happy to say that after this weekend, I am finally rid of it! I gave some of it away to my friend who then helped me lug the containers and duffel bags over to the textile recycling Wearable Collections had set up. The best thing about their program is that the clothing is sorted, so anything that can be reused will be and if it can’t, it’s recycled.

It’s amazing how much lighter I feel now that I’ve finally done this. It’s as if I was subconsciously wearing the pounds and pounds of clothes I had stuffed in those closets. Of course, now that there’s actually room in the closets again, there’s no longer any excuse for the complete mess in there. I guess getting those spic and span is my next task, but for now, I’m just happy I got this done.

Do you have any clutter and chaos that’s weighing you down? What’s your plan of action for getting rid of it?