A guide to clearing the clutter from your home
As leading providers of house clearance skip hire and waste disposal services in Surrey, South West London and South East London, One Waste has put together a practical guide on how to get rid of unwanted items in your home responsibly.
Key takeaways: how to get rid of unwanted items in your home
- Start small and declutter one room or area at a time so the task feels manageable and motivating.
- Thoughtfully choose whether to keep, donate, sell, recycle, or dispose of each item so it can be put to its best possible use.
- Charity shops, online marketplaces and textile banks are ideal for unwanted items that still have value.
- Skip hire is a practical option when you have a large volume of mixed household clutter that cannot be reused.
- One Waste provides licensed, eco‑conscious skip hire and sundry waste collections across Surrey and South West London.
What are the positive benefits of clearing clutter in your home?
There are multiple advantages to getting rid of unwanted household items. Clearing clutter before booking domestic skip hire for house clearance also helps you choose the right skip size and avoid paying to dispose of items that could be reused or donated.
Here are the main benefits of clearing clutter out of your home:
- It is easier to keep your home clean and tidy.
- You might discover lost treasures and will enjoy the things you keep more.
- Decluttering reduces stress – it has been associated with a decrease in the stress hormone, cortisol.
- It is satisfying to achieve a goal.
- Too much clutter can be visually overwhelming – decluttering your space can help to boost productivity and creativity.
Top clutter clearing tips for your home
Here are our tips on where to begin, when clearing the clutter from your home:
- Start small
If you start somewhere small and manageable – maybe just a junk drawer, kitchen cupboard or bathroom cabinet – you will feel a sense of satisfaction. This will help motivate you to continue onto larger tasks, such as clutter clearing a spare room, loft or garage.
If you live in Surrey or South London, planning your decluttering around a booked skip delivery from One Waste means you can load unwanted items straight into a licensed container instead of letting them pile up again.
- Make it sustainable
Set a timer and then be methodical: tackle one area or one room at a time.
- Stick to the ‘one in, one out’ rule
Try to avoid buying anything new that is a duplicate of something you already have.
Whether it’s your wardrobe, children’s toys or medicine cabinet, when you are sure you truly need something new, treat it as a positive replacement and responsibly pass on or recycle the original item so it can do some good instead of becoming waste.
- Be decisive
Assess each item of potential clutter. Is it something you regularly use or wear? Does it work or is it broken? Is it useful? If you are hanging onto something unnecessarily then now is the time to get rid of it.
Marie Kondo, author of ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying’, writes about the merits of living a clutter-free life. She asks readers to consider whether something “sparks joy”. It is OK to hang onto something that has sentimental value, but there should be a healthy limit to what you keep, otherwise this is closer to hoarding.
Organise the things you keep and once you have a sense of order, it will be easier to commit to keeping it that way.
- Work out the best way to dispose of the item
One of the most important parts of clearing the clutter from your home is considering the best way to dispose of it.
How to give unwanted items a second life
Here at One Waste, we advocate for recycling and aim to limit the amount of waste that is sent to landfill.
If you are wondering how to get rid of unwanted items in your home, it is encouraging to think about passing them on to someone else who can truly enjoy and benefit from them.
For items that still have plenty of life left in them – like clothes, children’s toys or decorative pieces – we warmly recommend donating them to charity so someone else can enjoy and benefit from them.
Most towns will have a charity shop or collection point. If clothes are damaged then many supermarkets and car parks have a collection bank so that textiles may be recycled.
Alternatively, you might enjoy selling your unwanted clutter on friendly platforms such as Facebook Marketplace, eBay or Vinted, giving your items a happy second life while earning a little extra money.
In many Surrey and South London neighbourhoods, charity shops and community reuse schemes will even collect good‑quality furniture and white goods, reducing what needs to go into a skip.
When is skip hire best for house clearance?
Thinking about how to get rid of unwanted items in your home, garage or shed? If you have a lot of unwanted clutter to dispose of then skip hire could be the solution. Skip hire for house clearance is usually the best option when you are dealing with a full property clear‑out in areas like Mitcham, Croydon, Wimbledon or across Surrey, and have a large volume of mixed household waste.
Skip hire is ideal if your clutter is predominantly these types of material and cannot be repurposed by anyone else:
- Paper
- Metals
- Plastics
- Glass
- Fabric
- Tiles
We are proud to provide environmentally conscious skip hire services. With our own waste transfer station, we separate and recycle 98% of the waste we collect.
As well as providing peace of mind with our recycling rates, we can also take care of your skip licence paperwork. Regardless of your circumstances, you can rely on us to manage each stage of your skip hire.
Click here for a helpful, comprehensive list of accepted waste that you can safely and easily dispose of in a skip.
How to dispose of larger unwanted items
If you’ve decided to declutter a garage or shed then you might find yourself with some unwanted materials or larger items.
As well as providing skip hire services, we can also collect certain sundry waste items at a convenient time, including:
- Unwanted plasterboard or carpet
- Unwanted mattresses
- Unwanted fridge/freezers
A licensed waste carrier such as One Waste can collect bulky items as part of a sundry waste collection or alongside your skip hire, ensuring they are taken to an authorised waste transfer station in Surrey.
Please feel free to get in touch to find out more about our sundry waste collection services – call our friendly team on 020 8685 9393 or email info@onewasteclearance.co.uk.
Skip hire for house clearance and clutter disposal in Surrey and South West London
One Waste Clearance is a fully licensed waste carrier providing domestic skip hire, wait‑and‑load services and sundry waste collections across Surrey, South West London and South East London. Our own waste transfer stations in Surrey allow us to sort and recycle up to 98% of the waste we collect, making house clearance skip hire an eco‑conscious choice.
We hope our clutter clearing guide has helped you figure out how to get rid of unwanted items in your home. Please contact us if you have any questions or need clarification on our waste management services.
To book our waste management or skip hire services, please call us on 020 8685 9393 and speak to a member of our friendly team. Alternatively, click to book a skip online.
Frequently asked Questions
The most effective way to clear clutter is to move room by room, happily sorting items into piles to keep, donate, sell, recycle and responsibly dispose of, so nothing useful goes straight to waste.
Skip hire is a great choice when you want comfortable time to sift through clutter and you have a large volume of mixed household waste, while a friendly man‑and‑van service is ideal for smaller clearances or when you’d like everything taken away in one easy visit.
You can usually pop everyday materials such as paper, metals, plastics, glass, fabric and tiles into a domestic skip, making it easy to clear space while recycling as much as possible. For everyone’s safety, hazardous items like asbestos, gas bottles and some electricals need specialist care instead – One Waste is always happy to guide you on what is safely accepted in your part of Surrey or South London.
Bulky items such as mattresses and fridge/freezers are best looked after by a licensed waste carrier or your local authority collection service, so they are handled and recycled safely in line with UK regulations and environmental best practice.
To be as kind as possible to the planet, prioritise donation, resale and recycling through charity shops, online marketplaces and textile banks, then use eco‑conscious skip hire for any remaining non‑reusable clutter so that as much as possible is thoughtfully diverted away from landfill.
One Waste provides domestic skip hire, wait‑and‑load and sundry waste collections across Surrey, South West London and South East London, and can advise on the right skip size, accepted waste and any licence paperwork you may need for house clearance.
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