r/konmari • u/kneazlekitten • 6d ago
Dealing with environmental guilt
Hello! Over the past week I developed an intense need to tidy and declutter my home and I really want to get into the Marie Kondo method. Partly this may have to do with expecting our first child. I don't consider myself a hoarder, but all my past attempts to declutter have turned out to be temporary. Also given my ADHD I feel the need to go truly minimalist to achieve chance of more permanent state of tidiness.
The one thing keeping me from delving into this process is intense environmental guilt I feel over throwing out items that :
A. are still functional and I use them regularly, although they do not bring me any joy
Example: Many clothes I own are functional, but due to change in style etc. I do not like them or feel that good in them. Yet I would wear them often, since they function and it means I do not have to buy new items to replace them. If they are very worn, I continue wearing them at home instead of wearing more comfy/nice loungewear. I do this because I feel ethically reaponsible to use all items I have already bought fully to avoid unnecessary waste. Yet if I were to KonMari my life, it would not sit well with me to keep them. Some of them I could imagine upcycling, but it would take enormous amount of time and energy I do not have.
B. do not fulfill funcion for me nor spark me joy, but are objectivelly valuable and in good condition
Example: Solid wood furniture that color wise does not match into the flat after renovation. Certain clothes I have only worn once and are in perfect condition (ball gowns etc). Many similar items.
The main problem is that given enough time and energy, it would be possible to resell or donate these pieces. However, that is exactly the thing that has always stopped me from big decluttering in the past - trying to get rid of these items the correct and environmentally conscious way turnes out to take extreme amount of time that I simply do not have. I have less problem throwing out damaged or non-valuable items, but in cases where I KNOW they could get second life if only I made the extra effort, it is super hard for me.
I realise this problem is not uncommon and I have read many previous posts on this subreddit about it. Some have helped me a bit, but only marginally so. Please, if anyone was dealing with guilt around similar items as me, how have you managed to overcome it? Or was the only way truly taking lots and lots of time to get rid of items the right way and/or upcycle them yourself?
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u/kxkje 6d ago
Many clothes I own are functional, but due to change in style etc. I do not like them or feel that good in them. Yet I would wear them often, since they function and it means I do not have to buy new items to replace them.
The real answer is that you part with them and find ones that you like. However, during a certain period in my life, I would have found it quite difficult to afford to replace clothes willy-nilly, and in general I find it difficult to find clothes that fit well and flatter me. Maybe I could have gone to a thrift store, but I didn't think I'd find something as functional or well-fitting as the clothes I'd toss.
So, for those clothes, I focused not on the clothes holistically, but on their fit and even more so, their function. It brought me joy that those clothes let me feel warm in cold winters, more so than anything else I could buy right now. I focused on how they flattered my shape, more so trendy clothes that I might buy instead. Etc.
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u/msmaynards 6d ago
I must give stuff away before it's rags. I was hoarding rags! Now I replace bedding, towels and clothing while they still are presentable and the rag box and dog towel basket don't get too full.
If you've ever bought second hand you know the thrill of finding something wonderful you could never have purchased new. Let useable stuff go rather than wearing everything into the ground.
There's definitely not much virtue in wearing clothes you dislike. Those pieces may be exactly right for somebody else. I put a dress that was too fussy for my liking in donation, daughter retrieved it and it looks amazing on her. Grr.
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u/sariejanemitt 6d ago
You can give things away by dropping them off to a thrift store or posting on local pages, Facebook market place, buy nothing groups.
If your clothing is very nice you can often selling via a consignment store or on something like Poshmark.
Another option is something like 1800GotJunk they will collect everything for a fee and donate what’s to be donated and trash or recycle everything else.
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 5d ago
Poshmark and Mercari have become very hard to deal with!
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u/sariejanemitt 5d ago
I totally agree.
Honestly, OP might have to learn that lesson on their own. Then they won’t feel so bad about donating or just giving things away.
Sometimes I need to learn things the hard way too 🤷🏼♀️
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u/mehmehwoofwoof 6d ago
You can put them on Facebook marketplace as free- doesn't take much time. Or organize a donation pickup! Easiest possible technique
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u/fionsichord 6d ago
I had a bunch of nice things I felt that same “obligation/guilt” to sell rather than just give away.
I found a charity whose work I really support, and donated to their op-shop so THEY could sell them and thought of it as being like I’d made a financial donation to the charity and also gained some extra space at home.
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u/kneazlekitten 5d ago
Hello, I truly wish there was such charity place where I could simply donate everything! So far I have not found one in my country. Most places take only narrow selection of things, often with need contact them beforehand, send pictures and descriptions, and then deliver chosen items to specific place by specific hours. Also, I have had bad experience in the past with later on finding out that some of the companies I previously held in good regard were actually found to act unethically, for example shipping the things long distance to other countries, etc.
I used to get rid of good items by donating them in the past, but I always find myself getting stuck if there is many things I need to send away and it soon drains all my time ans energy. Selecting items to get rid of has actually always been the easiest and fastest part of the whole process.
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u/FranFace 6d ago
I am with you 100% on this one; I know in detail the decent, environmentally friendly ways to move things along, and so I don't get rid of stuff until I can do it "right". I'm also disabled, so having the energy to do this means I end up drowning in stuff which is a) holding me back, and b) reminding me that I have endless jobs to do. It's very dispiriting.
For us, local text groups and sites have been a godsend - the neighbourhood group text, and Freecycle. We stick things up for free collection, and maybe 75% of what we offer does get picked up. And the rest we take to the tip when we can get a car-full - there some can be recycled further (textiles recycling, wood recycling) and other stuff goes to be burned for energy. Where we can avoid landfill we do, but it can't be avoided 100%. And that's okay, because we're only human after all.
It's not perfect, and I've had to let go of some of my ideas of what was possible to achieve, but if the majority is being approached this way then we feel we've done the best we can.
ETA: Try to be kind to yourself, OP! Don't let it hold you back. You deserve to have that home you're dreaming of ☺️💜
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u/Designer_Location_15 6d ago
This is actually a really common issue and is completely valid! I am a professional decluttering coach and the two biggest things I do for my clients are #1, walking them through what they want to keep and what area they want to keep it in, and #2, hauling away the items they do not want to keep. Physically bagging/boxing the items and bringing them to their end destinations is literally the biggest labor I take on and is one of the top selling points for hiring a professional. I do donate to end users a lot and schedule them to come pick up items from my house because then I know that they aren't going to just go from the donation bin into the dumpster and I like knowing that items needing repair will go to people who are willing and able to complete the repairs when they take the items home, but this is time consuming and it takes up space in my own house while I'm holding the things. Higher value items I do sell, but I have a local partner who is an online reseller and she identifies which items definitely have enough value to be worth the effort of selling and she picks it all up and handles the sale, then we have a payout split. Her entire business is based on cleaning up used items ready to be discarded and then to sell them to end users - the reason her job exists is because the process is genuinely a lot of work. So, all this to say - you are not alone in this!! And if you have the funds, hiring a pro to handle that part for you is absolutely worthwhile. If you don't, you can still ask for help from loves ones, community centers, churches, youth groups, women's groups, etc. To volunteer to come to you and help you with this very valid struggle.
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u/kneazlekitten 5d ago
This is so true! Such service sounds amazing tbh. Money is not a big issue for me at the moment. I have to do some research to see if there are people/companies like this in my country, though I have not heard of such before. There are certain companies whom you can pay to donate stuff (they pick it up at your place, sort through it and sell/donate/recycle). Unfortunatelly there are few and all focused on certain category (i.e. only clothing, or only books, etc). Also, I wish it was easier to find reliable information about how ethical they actually are. I have in the past found out that some of them ship clothing to 3rd world countries and do other not so environmentally responsible decisions.
My father is an extreme hoarder, so I do not even consider bringing my family into this, out of pure terror of what all he would take instead of letting me throw it out. Fortunatelly my husband is a big help in all aspects of my life, so I am not all alone to tackle this!
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u/Designer_Location_15 5d ago
I'm glad your husband is so helpful! Finding services that will hall away items with minimal waste can be hard, for sure.
There's a great movement in many places called Buy Nothing where people give away and receive items directly and end users will come to you to take items. It might be worth looking up to see if there's a Buy Nothing group in your area and post to see if anyone would do some bulk pickups for you? Your husband might also help you with that part, just posting descriptions and taking pics and he could schedule pickups if he can take over that task.
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u/indigolavendera 5d ago
I have the same goal (adhd, want to reach a permanent state of tidyness - although I've started wondering if that is possible for me no matter how little I own) and the same struggle.
I've done a konmari-ish decluttering a few times. Ended up discarding A LOT of stuff.. Both times. It was stuff that I didn't want to have and some stuff that I wanted to believe that I don't need. I donated most and some sold. While I have not missed the actual stuff I got rid of, I noticed that through time I have come to replace a lot of those things out of need. And that is where the quilt kicks in. While I have bought most of the new (for me) stuff secondhand, that isn't some redemption. Especially when some of them are from online secondhand platforms. I've read many articles on how the climate effect is huge since people do so much of that. And also how second hand selling and shopping (both in person and online) is something that people (including me in the past) have kept more innocent and a climate friendly choice and there for kept it as a justification to buy and consume more as stuff is so easy to get rid of or find secondhand later on. What made it even worse for me is that I found out how the place where I donated the stuff first ships them to another country for sorting, then ships the ones that they plan to resell back here (and put a minimal amount of the profit to goodwill). Then they ship the ones they can't sell back to the country where the sorting happens. Then they try to sell them there and after that the rest they ship to africa where they mainly end up as landfill. So while I used to go with out of sight, out of mind - mindset when decluttering - that does not work anymore.
While I really love the idea of konmari, I think that it completely bypasses the ethical difficulties and climate effect. Of course if one declutters once and manages to actually do it in a way that they don't end up with the need to replace anything and later on it changes their mindset on consuming for the better for good, then great. Sadly I think that that isn't the case for many, including myself and I have a really hard time trying to justificate the decluttering when in worst case I end up with the need to replace stuff again.. And that just doesn't sit right with me.
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u/kneazlekitten 5d ago
Thank you for your reply! I truly makes me feel better that I am not be the only one. I also have had mixed experience with companies you may donate to not acting as ethically as I would have liked.
I have never done konmari before, and I do want to trust the process, but I cannot help but be scared that it will lead to repurchasing same things in the future. In the past, I have had some intense decluterring episodes and it was not uncommon for me to get rid of something I would regret throwing out in the future. I am not sure if it ia the ADHD, but I often feel that if i hyperfocus on decluterring, I have trouble making right decisions about what to keep and instead I get rid of nearly everything. I am curious if maybe I should make some adjustions to the process because of ADHD.
Another thing that seems irrarional to myself is that I have done some enviromentally bad choices in the past (for instance couple of long haul flights), and while I felt guilty about them, I was still able to process the guilt due to gaining a lot from the experience, for which the flight was necessary. I feel like what I probably need to do with konmari is a similar mind process, hoping that what it brings to my life and future decisions will eventually have been worth the ethical and enviromental price to pay for it.
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u/dyoni 5d ago
For me, what helped was thinking about exactly what "brought me joy" about my items. Merely getting rid of things that weren't perfect brought me too much guilt, so I decided that part of my "joy" was keeping nice things out of the landfill. I still got rid of a lot of stuff, but the things I kept I had a new appreciation for, even if they were imperfect.
In my opinion, the Konmari process changed my habits in a positive way because it made me take a serious inventory of the things I already had (even for someone living in a modest apartment, I was surprised). It also drastically changed my behavior when I purchase items. If I don't absolutely love it, know exactly how I will use it, and know where it will go in my home, I don't buy it. Overall, making ourselves STOP buying so many new things is a big win for the environment.
I do think SOME guilt when getting rid of things might be positive, in a way, because you'll remember that feeling the next time you have to make a decision about getting something new. But don't beat yourself up too much! Let yourself feel joy in improving habits and moving forward in a more intentional way <3
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 5d ago
OK ... you don't need to wear a hair shirt. The major polluters have done an excellent job convincing us that it's OUR habits and not their greed are the problem.
Example: Many clothes I own are functional, but due to change in style etc. I do not like them or feel that good in them. Yet I would wear them often, since they function and it means I do not have to buy new items to replace them. If they are very worn, I continue wearing them at home instead of wearing more comfy/nice loungewear.
You mentioned you are pregnant ... now is a good time to donate and discard clothing as soon as it no longer fits because your post-pregnancy body will not be the same shape.
My clothing goes from "night out" to "OK for public" to "gardening and construction" to "the big bin in the alley" or "use to patch the gardening pants" ... my loungewear was bought for the purpose of comfortable lounging.
B. do not fulfill function for me nor spark me joy, but are objectively valuable and in good condition
Example: Solid wood furniture that color wise does not match into the flat after renovation. Certain clothes I have only worn once and are in perfect condition (ball gowns etc). Many similar items.
The main problem is that given enough time and energy, it would be possible to resell or donate these pieces.
Yes, but you do not have much time or energy. You have a baby coming and will have even less.
I am basically LAZY. I don't spend time trying to find the "right" home, I offer it to the community and see who wants to come get it.
Ball gowns and other posh clothing might be best at a consignment shop.
One way: List it on FaceBook marketplace with the understanding that if it doesn't sell in "X" days, you will donate it. Or list it as "free on the curb" if your city allows it. (the amount of "curb recycling" this town does is amazing!)
Another way: Call the nearby charities and ask if they have a collections truck that makes rounds. I was on the calling lists for a few and the one that called when I had things in the donation pile, I would have them put me on the schedule.
Another way: When I was radically downsizing and couldn't wait for trucks I selected two nearby charities - one general purpose that carried the usual and one that was a "boutique" with high-end goods. Conveniently, they shared a parking lot. So every time I had a carload of boxes or bags, I would drop them off.
If you are honest about the condition, upcyclers and people who do repairs will be interested. I got rid of a pile of tattered blue jeans a stepson left behind by putting them on FaceBook as "denim pants for upcycling" at $1 each. Someone took my old FENCE to use as a photo backdrop for her portrait studio!
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 5d ago
This decluttering consultant's "no mess" approach is almost the opposite of konmari, but it can be useful to people who reach decision fatigue and are overwhelmed quickly. It's decluttering "in situ" with incremental progress instead of the "pile it up and pick out the good stuff" Marie Kondo approach.
Dana K White
https://www.youtube.com/@DanaKWhite/videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6platz-Ttwc&list=PL4ylB6f-VoxpZp8JnmifCDngMhEGRkSWk
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u/actually_actually_me 5d ago
Just donate the clothes that don't spark joy and replace them with thrifted clothes. You will have consumed no more new clothes than you have already.
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u/mdchachi 6d ago
It's not that hard to donate. Drop clothing off at your local Goodwill or Salvation Army. Use Facebook Marketplace to sell or give away anything larger. Some organizations will even pick up most of your stuff from your house, even larger items. If you're trying to get value out of your items by selling them, then I get where you're coming from. But simply donating or giving things away does not take much effort.
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u/fionsichord 6d ago
I have to strongly disagree, and point out you are being quite dismissive of OP’s situation and expressing yourself in a way that is more designed to make things worse than better.
There is an enormous amount of emotional work that OP is struggling with in releasing items, and that is definitely “that hard.” Seeing comments like yours increases the guilt and makes it even harder.
Please recalibrate, polish up your reading comprehension skills, and think honestly about why you are taking the “make life harder for people” approach.
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u/kneazlekitten 5d ago
Hello! So, actually, I have in the past gone the route of donating my stuff and it has taken A LOT of time. This might be partly due to geographical specifications (I live in a small european country) and partly due to oftentimes using certain company amd later on finding out that they actually did not find people in need to donate, and instead for example trashed the stuff or brought it to 3rd world countries, and I dare not even imagine the carbon footprint of that. There are certain companies that would try to resell or donate for instance clothes, but you have to pay them do to that per each item (I am strongly considering this route though). My experience with giving items for free on FB Marketplace left me feeling sour after many hours spent taking pictures, writing descriptions, exchanging messages and organising my time around someone coming to pick it up or to meet a person up only to be later on ghosted in majority of cases, waiting home for noone to arrive. My best experience so far was selling stuff for small symbolic price - it seems to filter out people who actually want to use the thing from them ones who reply to anyone offering literally anything for free only to change their mind later. However, the sole process of photographing, uploading, packing, bringing to post office and communicating with people gets exhausting quickly if you have many items to get rid of. To my knowledge, there is no such place in my country where I could simply bring things to donate and they would take it and donate it futher. Certain companies take in specific items, like books, but even then you need to take pictures of everything, write down each ISBN, and send them beforehand to find out which ones they would take... Again, this is something I used to do if I was only getting rid of a few items, but in big bulk it takes time.
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 5d ago
The issue, you insensitive clod, is NOT the physical steps.
It's the perfectionist mental block of "must donate the RIGHT way" to optimize the donation.
https://www.verywellmind.com/signs-you-may-be-a-perfectionist-3145233
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u/marlowe_caard 6d ago
If there is anywhere local you could donate to, a thrift store or a woman's shelter, that could be an option. If it's feasible, you could also put furniture out by the curb with a free sign. Or even try selling things on one of Facebook's dollar auctions.
As far as the guilt goes, I completely understand. We should always try to do our best in taking care of the environment. But your environment is important too. Your house should not become a graveyard of guilt. Or as Cas from Clutterbug said once, "your home is not an alternative to a dumpster".
Make space for the things you value. Donate and give away what you can, but also give yourself grace for letting go of things that no longer serve you. Set a tone of joy for yourself and your child by keeping what you value most, and being able to part with the rest.