Refuse and recycling carts at the curb
Streets & Urban Forestry

Donate, Reuse, Resell

Resale Stores & Donation Opportunities

Please contact the store, or visit their website, before showing up with items you wish to donate. Not all items you have may be accepted where you want to donate them. 

Specialty Donation / Other Resale Options

There are many other options locally for your usable goods. There are specialty consignment fashion shops, used bookstores, used video game stores, vintage toys, and other collectibles, treasures, and antique shops.

Places like the Ronald McDonald House or Gilda's Club accepts new items.

Certain tools may be donated to The Bodgery.

Certain art supplies could go to the Hello Art Hatchery. 

Buttons, zippers, and yarn may be donated to the Textile Arts Center of Madison.

Sewing supplies can go to The Sewing Machine Project.  

And on and on...

Our community is full of opportunities - you just need to do a little bit of research.

Search online for "resale shops" or "thrift stores" or "donate" plus the item you would like to give away (for example, "donate toys") should reveal additional local resources.

Local Share Economy

Social media channels like Facebook and Nextdoor are a great tool to share usable goods in the neighborhood groups that you follow.

And there are many local groups that help connect people to free items on these platforms as well.

On social media sites, searching for "Buy Nothing Madison" or "Zero Waste Madison" should return local options. T

here's also Freecycle, Trash Nothing, and likely other groups or organizations.

There is also the time-honored tradition of the yard sale (or garage sale, rummage sales, church sales, etc.).  Many neighborhoods organize coordinated sales to help drum up interest, too.

There are some places that do regular item swaps, like the program put on by the Neighborhood House. Perhaps an organization you belong to could also organize a similar event?

Online Exchanges

There are many popular person-to-person exchanges online for your items.

Options include Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and eBay and relatively newer private companies like LetGo, DeCluttr, 5Miles, WhatNot, and likely many more.

Remember to be safe when making the payment and when exchanging the goods.

Was this page helpful to you?

Trash & Recycling