Latest / More Organised Less Clutter / 233. Sustainable and circular organisng with preloved storage
Transcript
- Narelle King: Welcome to More Organized, Less Clutter, a podcast to empower individuals and neurodivergent families with practical, realistic tools to create a more organized, sensory-friendly, clutter-free, and intentional home that works with your lifestyle and brain, not against it. I'm Narelle King, a professional organizer and neurodivergent mom who understands the unique challenges of family life. I help people just like you simplify your space build sustainable organisational systems and create more breathing room physically and mentally. Every fortnight, you'll hear solo episodes and guest conversations filled with practical strategies on decluttering, home organisation, routines for neurodivergent families, mindful living and how to build a home that feels safe, calm and functional. You'll walk away with actionable takeaways you can implement even if you only have 10 minutes to spare. Have you ever found yourself staring at the cupboard full of storage containers only to realise they're all brand new and unused? Imagine if instead of purchasing more, you could create a beautifully organised space using what you already have. What if every item in your home not only served a purpose but also played a role in reducing waste and being kinder to our planet. In the podcast episode, I'll be sharing why sustainability and circular organization using pre-love storage is important and also three practical steps to help you embrace sustainable organizing in your life. Thanks for joining me for today's solo episode, all about sustainability and circular storage for organizing. I'm really excited to guide you on a journey towards organizing. and not only declutters your space, but also helps to contribute to a healthier planet and also saves you money. So we're going to go through why embrace sustainable organizing and some of the benefits. And then I'll give you a couple of practical steps that you can take that I also use in my business. So sustainable organizing is about making conscious choices in how you organize your space. but also about avoiding buying new purchases wherever possible. I like to focus on quality storage solutions, sourced from what I already have in my home and maybe repurposing and moving things around, or also looking in local op shops or even on the community swap pages of Facebook. In the business, we've also adopted this principle to try to avoid buying new where possible. I will collect quality storage from clients when they're volunteered to have it be donated for other clients to use. I will also look in op shops when I'm dropping off donations from other clients and also online. I'll keep my eyes out on Facebook marketplace in those community swap groups and grab things when we can. I then have this all stored in a little tiny shed. that a client gifted me and it's just outside the side of our house so it's easy for me to access and it's not too big so it's nice and small but big enough to store everything but I can visually see it when I go into that shed straight away. The benefits of using this approach and trying to give items a second life is to reduce waste. especially being a professional organiser, I see how many things people purchase and then they leave their home every day. Like there's so many items that I will take to an op shop that's pre-loved. And so by using these pre-loved items as storage solutions, we can really reduce the demand for new products, which in turn maximises the environmental impact which in turn minimises the environmental impact that's associated with manufacturing and also transporting all of these items and new items to the stores that we purchase them from. Another benefit is it's going to save you money. When you invest in quality secondhand storage, you're often getting more for your money. It's also budget friendly. This also allows you to allocate funds to other areas in your life that you might like to prioritise like spending time with family members and doing some sort of experience or a holiday. It also shows huge respect for our planet and sustainable organising and sustainable organising respects both your personal space but also the environment by making those thoughtful choices, we're really caring for the planet that we live on. Now, I've got three steps that I'm going to suggest for you to take, for you to look at using sustainable organising in your life. So the first thing is to assess your current storage. So what do you already have in your home that you could use? So just walking around, taking a look in all of your cupboards and you might be really surprised at how many baskets, containers, maybe dividers are tucked away somewhere in your cupboards and just waiting to be used. I like to allocate a home in my house where I'm going to go to to collect all the storage ones, all the storage containers to use in my own home. I have obviously the little shed, but that's for clients. So the ones that I have for myself is in a spare bedroom. I usually try to allocate a place in a client's home, especially if I'm going regularly where we're going to keep containers and things that we could use, baskets, anything that we could use for storage until we've organised all of the areas in the home. And then they generally keep that space going and they go to it and put things away that they don't need and then collect something else that they might need that's the biggest size. So it's great to allocate one place to bring all of those storage that you currently have to live. The next practical step that I would take is to look at items that are really great for storage. So my suggestions are dividers. So those small containers that you will put inside drawers. It could even be a box of some kind. The digital cases that phones come in make great dividers and there's so many other containers that you could use as a divider without having to go and purchase something new. Baskets are also great and just containers. So maybe it's old Tupperware plastic containers that don't have maybe lids anymore. These could be used as your dividers. or the ones that do have lids, you could use them as a container to store items in. Turntables, these are like the circle roundabouts that you can put things on and it's great in a corner or a space that you can't maybe access right at the back. So you could have a turntable. It may have something in front of it, ideally not, but if it's a really deep cupboard, if you have the turntable in the back, you can then probably easily access it by rotating it around. Another thing to look out for that might be on marketplace or a swap group or secondhand in an op shop are rises. And these are like a little shelf that you can put inside a cupboard and it means that you can put things underneath it but then on top of it and it means you're not going It means that you're not going to have to lift things off. So these work really well with platters. You could have say two platters on the bottom, two on top. And so when you go to use them, you're only moving one other platter. You're not having to take the whole thing out to get to the one that's on the bottom that you might need. Rises also work really well in pantries. I also really like using them with cans in pantries as well. Another thing to look out for is a tiered step. So these are like little mini steps. Again, these are great and usually sold for cans. And it just means that you can see things that are in front and then they're slightly risen up the items that would be behind. These also work really well with beauty items or like makeup as well. Another item I love is a magazine holder. It means that items are vertical and so it's great for paperwork. but it's also really useful in your kitchen. So you might use this for drink bottles, to store drink bottles vertically. It also fits usually really nicely on a shelf. And if you turn it the opposite direction, so the back long section is on the shelf and then you can maybe put towels, drink bottles, your food wraps. If you're using tin foil or brown paper, these may fit. perfectly inside them. They also then help to fill up and use up a long narrow space. Another one are folder dividers. So they're like dividers on the bottom and you would normally put folders in them. Again I love these in kitchens to use for things like trays or so lids of containers are another thing that these can be really useful for. It means you're using the vertical space instead of having things flat and you can only access the top item. So really think creatively about items in your home that could be reused. And our last thing is to think about donating and giving back. So if you do have containers, baskets you no longer need, consider donating them or putting them on a swap page or finally contacting maybe your local professional organizer or if you're in Geelong, donate to me. I love taking clean baskets, containers, jars with lids, drawer dividers, turntables, risers. all of the magazines holders, all the things that I've just mentioned before that you need to look out for if you're wanting to build up a couple of things to have for storage within your own home. What I don't accept is anything that's broken, cracked, unsafe, or items that are heavily centered or stained, which is usually the practice that I would also encourage not to give to a op shop when you're donating either. hope you feel inspired to embrace some sustainable organizing in your life. Remember, you don't need to buy more containers. Instead, look around your home and get creative. But before you even do that, it may be just time to actually declutter rather than even having to find something to store more items in. Thanks for joining me for this more organized, clutter episode towards sustainability. Don't forget to check out on social media for more tips and tricks on how to organize your space sustainably. I have a series this month sharing all of these sustainable ideas with you. Sick of stepping on blocks at bedtime, hunting for doll shoes, puzzle pieces and spending 20 minutes packing away the same pile of toys every night? Our toy organisation, Four Steps System, will help you cut down on toy clutter, set up zones that spark independent play and create storage that kids can easily maintain. Let's create a calmer, more organised playroom that makes clean-ups quick and easy and under five minutes. head to simplyhappy.com.au and click on the resources tab to get instant access today. I'd like to acknowledge the Wathaurong people of the Kulin Nation on which this podcast is recorded as the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging.