Isn’t it amazing how paper clutter can manifest itself in so many different ways? This month I’ve been cleaning out my important paperwork and old cards. This week I’m tackling old magazines.
As a former magazine journalism major, I love magazines. I love eye-catching layouts, well-written stories, and all of the information that can be packed into one simple issue. I’ve read a lot of magazines in my life. And I’ve kept a lot of magazines, too.
The problem is, now that I’m a lot busier, I don’t have much time to read my magazines. And even if I do get to flip through them, inevitably, all our magazines pile up and I have to cull them.
Once I do sort my magazines, here are some easy ways I recycle them:
- If there’s a particular story or photo I like, I tear it out of the magazine and store it in an expandable file. I started this long before the days of Pinterest, when I wanted a way to save good ideas – especially for home decorating.
- Because my children are at the perfect age for making collages – especially to reinforce the alphabet – I tear out vivid pictures from magazines and save them in an alphabetized file.
- If a magazine is pretty well intact, I remove my address and take the magazine with me to my next doctor’s appointment. While I’m sitting in the waiting room I leave my like-new magazine copy with the other magazines.
- Discover what magazines your friends or family members subscribe to and have a magazine trade every few months.
- Donate intact magazines to your local library. Our library holds a used book sale each summer, and periodicals are sold, too.
- If all else fails, take your used magazines to your local recycling center.
This week’s Reduce, Reuse & Recycle Challenge
This week’s challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to sort your magazines. Get rid of them any way you’d like – but make sure you do it.
Talk back
Once you’ve completed the challenge, please share your experience on Facebook. What did you choose to do with your magazines?
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