Charitable Donations and Recycling

Knowing that items are ethically processed is important to our clients.  The good news is, at Brisbane Estate Clearance it’s important to us too. 

When a property clearance is carried out responsibly and ethically, it provides a great opportunity to both recycle and donate items to local charities and community organisations.  It’s a great way to help others and can make parting with a loved ones possessions a little bit easier. This is something many of our clients have mentioned as being very important to them. 

We are passionate about re-purposing and recycling the items we clear. Timo previously had a place on the board of directors for the not-for-profit organisation, Reverse Garbage, and we have carried this ethos into Brisbane Estate Clearance. 

We aim to donate, re-purpose or recycle as much as possible from any estate or property we clear. This not only benefits the community and the environment, it also helps reduce our disposal fees, making our service more affordable for you. 

You can be assured that when you work with us, your or your loves ones possessions will not go to waste, they will go on to benefit many other people in need in our community. 

Donating items:

Rachel unloading towels and sheets at the RSPCA depot in Wacol. We stockpile worn towels and sheets from estates at our premises until we have about a pallet load and then they’re delivered by us to the RSPCA.

Rachel and Louise, from the YMCA Shop in Mt Gravatt. The YMCA shop sales fund free breakfasts at selected schools in Brisbane to reduce the number of school children disadvantaged by hunger and poor nutrition.

Many excess household items can be donated: large items such as furniture, but also small consumables such as some cleaning products and stationary.

Items that we commonly donate include: 

We have delivered household items to a number of places in and around Brisbane including:

Furniture and assorted other household items to various registered charities in Brisbane.

Furniture, craft items and pots and plants to various schools and kindergartens.

Craft supplies such as paints, canvases and beading equipment to the mental health units at Brisbane hospitals.

Clean linen in worn or damaged condition to animal welfare organsiations.

Lego and Duplo toys to community playgroups (Please Note: most toys unfortunately cannot be donated unless in original packaging or in as-new condition, with hard non-porous surfaces for easy disinfecting).  

Gardening equipment has been donated to a local community farm. 

Furniture to foster carers and kinship carers.

We have also passed items directly to individuals in the community who we felt needed some help. 

Most often, particularly in the case of large estates, we donate items to the larger charity warehouses. Because we use a large truck we are able to park and unload easily at the larger charity depots/warehouses. Items delivered to warehouses are then distributed throughout the community by the charity.  These larger charities include: The Endeavour Foundation, Lifeline, YMCA and RSPCA. 

AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON DONATING ESTATE ITEMS TO REGISTERED CHARITIES:

Charities use the sale of items to fund their operations. Not all household items are suitable for donation for this purpose. We only deliver to registered charities items that are clean, undamaged and offer an easy resale. Donating items to charities that have no resale value or that are damaged, broken, unclean or excessively large would mean the charities need to pay to dispose of the items themselves. 

We are also unable to donate most particle board furniture (unfortunately particle board furniture is difficult to move without breaking and has no or very little resale value and is not accepted by most charities for these reasons. 

Effective recycling:

Items to be recycled, such as metals, are separated out before being taken to B.C.C. transfer stations. We have found this to be the most efficient and cost-effective way of recycling large amounts of items.

We aim to wherever possible recycle items that can’t be reused. As far as practicable we sort items on-site, such as metal, paper, wood, plastic and e-waste, and transport these to the appropriate Brisbane City Council Resource Recovery Centres. 

This method allows higher rates of recycling than depositing all materials as ‘mixed lots’ at Waste Transfer Stations. This also significantly lowers the cost of our service, saving you money. 

Unfortunately some items are difficult to recycle: old mattresses, particle board furniture certain plastics and items containing mixtures of recyclable and non-recyclable materials. These materials are taken to Waste Transfer Stations as general waste.

The good news is, items that were once difficult to recycle at B.C.C. facilities now have their own recycling programs and projects: