I keep wondering when our lives became drowned in paper, but there it is.
We were lulled into a false security with the explosion of emails – at my office alone, we produced 40 to 45 lbs. of paper per month. Serial offenders printed electronic correspondence thoughtlessly. If we buy one donut, a single receipt is handed to us and we file it away without pondering the impact. Did you know? Receipts grow exponentially. Just check your purse or wallet for the evidence.
Please assure me a tech genius is working on a retail card that is scanned with our email addresses and receipts travel via wire or satellite to land beautifully in our inboxes.
You can imagine my weariness at tackling 7+ years worth of paper. Oh, cherished parchment what to do with you?
SHRED IT
This seems wasteful, but to prevent theft identity, always shred vital papers such as old paystubs, credit card bills, or unusable cheques. I use to equate shredding with scandals like Enron, but no more. Personal home shredders are as low as $50, so there’s no excuse not to take care of business.
RECYCLE IT
Any paper you aren’t shredding should be recycled. I throw in envelopes, flyers, marketing literature, grocery lists, or newspapers. Some municipal recycling programs pick up at your doorstep or there are communal bins at designated locations.
STATIONARY
My old fashioned ways force me to hoard stationary. Oui, ironic since I’m the one lecturing Ms. Grundy style about printing emails. I shall defend this pastime in the future, for now let’s suppose during purging you find a stack of unblemished Christmas cards that you picked up from the $2.99 rack truly believing you would pen touching poems to loved ones. Harsh reality prevails, what you discover is a wad of empty envelopes, stacks and stacks of blank paper, craft supplies, and a fast approaching migraine.
Donate to Children
If you have craft supplies – glue sticks, construction paper, and the like donating them to an elementary school might make a kid’s day. With school boards slashing budgets, this kind of gesture allows you to contribute directly to the community. Check your area for a suitable elementary school or post a craigslist ad, an eager elementary school teacher will respond. Trust me.
Other ideas or organizations to explore:
Charity guide on type of materials to donate.
Adopt-A-Classroom - Support a specific teacher and their classroom. Search for a local school through the classroom locator. There’s also a link for international schools.
Donate to Urban Source
Urban Source conjures an era when any object was re-imagined because hey, this is the best we’ve got, let’s make do. You can not only take all your forgotten stationary to them, but they also accept ANYTHING. A hodge podge of stickers, strips of film, random puzzle pieces, bits of wrapping paper. Once you donate items, the store then re-sells the materials to budding crafters and artists. I love this store for their belief system. The magical sparkle dust are the creations dreamed up from something as ordinary as a handful of buttons and a Chinese take-out box. www.urbansource.bc.ca. 3126 Main Street, Vancouver, 604-875-1611.
Donate to a Non-Profit
Unlike private corporations, non-profits run lean, often relying on the kindness of strangers. Choose a non-profit that supports charities, and don’t discount anything that could be useful to them. Besides envelopes or notebooks, how about file folders, report binding materials, or postage stamps? Stuck in the cube? Start an office donation drive at work. What I adore about this process is seeing the results of a direct transaction between you and the non-profit. It literally restores my faith in goodness. Isn’t it time you restored yours?
- How to donate office supplies (courtesy of eHow).
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
@Alison – Great tips, Alison! Especially the shredded paper/compost idea. :)
Shredded paper is a great addition to the compost heap if you know any gardeners to donate it to. There are quite a few charities that collect used stamps to re-sell to collectors. You can also make new beautiful hand-made paper from old used paper. The added benefit is you can sell it to fund your travels :)
@Sanya – Why thanks!
@Emily – Thanks for sharing your story. Hopefully others read and donate their hearts out!
I used to work at a Boys & Girls Club, some of them (like mine) don’t have a large budget and love any and every donation (even 1/2 used spiral notebooks for tutoring the kids). Donating back to your community is a great way to give your old papers a new life and feel less tied down at the same time.
Saving paper became an urgent social issue to cope with as it creates pollution and excessive usage of water and wood, these are really nice tips to properly use unwanted papers.
@JoAnna – I hear from 1 or 2 teacher friends that materials are hard to come by & expensive. Some great suggestions here, thanks for sharing!
@Erin – Well, well said! I should ask you to write these from now on. :-D
@Abby – You live in an oxymoronic country. But now you’re in NYC loving it, I hope.
Definitely donating to schools is a good idea. Art teachers, especially, will take newspapers and those old stationery cards you have to use for collages and paper mache projects.
Paper is a nightmare to get rid of! When we sold all of our stuff we had to get rid of all our paperwork too. We had too many old bank statements etc to shred it all on our crappy shredder so we burnt it in our BBQ. Turned our burning paper is surprisingly difficult! It took quite a while.
We also took about 6 bin bags full of old school/uni notes, photos, cards etc to the recycling dump. Crazy amounts of paper!
It felt so good to get rid of it all though! Now the only paper we own is a small box file with the essential documents that we’ve left with parents while we travel.
Heck, all I did was move to a country with an archaic mailing system. No care packages from Mom, but no catalogs either. Hooray! Costa Rica is so great with some environmental concerns — and so bad with others. Poco a poco. ;-)
@Abby – Wow, girl. You are a veteran at the ‘no paper’ rule. I bow to you!
It’s so wild to think about! I haven’t had a piece of mail in nine months, and my phone bill is texted to my cell, to be paid in person at the grocery store. But oh do I remember my shredder… It’s no wonder we all feel so much lighter when we take off traveling!
@James Schipper – If I were you, perhaps have a trusted friend look after the tax receipts. That’s what I did!
I ended up with 2 full hefty bags of shredding to take to the recycle bin with the regular one full of junk mail. I am down to a small expanding folder of tax receipts I have to keep unless I can get them digitized easily.
It’s so nice to get it from 5 boxes I’ve been hauling around down to an accordion file I can hide anywhere.
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