I find it extremely difficult to throw away (and for that I include putting them in for recycling) things like icecream containers, glass jars, cardboard boxes etc. I even have to fight the urge to save the middles of toilet rolls, I used to have to have a supply when the children were young, and egg cartons, as inevitably if they needed one to take to school it had to be tomorrow, not next week.

I have conquered the saving of toilet roll middles but still can't throw away the middle of a roll of giftwrap or kitchen roll, I have to keep them a while.

At the weekend I had a 'meal deal' from the supermarket and the desserts were little souflees in glass dishes, I now have half a dozen of those but cannot bring myself to throw them out.

I have just been brave and have sorted out a cupboard and filled a sack with plastic containers ready to take to the recycling bank.

Are you a hoarder?

I keep little cardboard boxes and postal packets as I think they might be useful for sending gifts.
You wouldn't be able to give your children the toilet roll middles any more,as I think they are no longer allowed to be used in school. I am sure I heard that, so don't feel guilty.
Yes it is hard to throw out jars and plastic containers, especially if they are a nice shape or colour.

I have to admit that I try not to start hoarding this type of thing, though I find it hard to throw out stuff that is so obviously useful. Baby food jars with lids were one of my weaknesses, I used them to store spices in and for the end of batches of jam when I made it, I think I even convinced my husband to use them for storing his small stuff in the garage, nails, washers, nuts, screws and suchlike. I have to admit that nowadays the few of these jars which are still hanging around here bring out a nostalgic smile for that period in my life which is over. With two teens and a near-teen in the house, it'll be a long while before I get a new stock of babyfood jars!

Shoe boxes are another that I always hang onto for a few days before accepting that I just don't need to hold onto them.

What really bothers me to throw out are little yoghurt tubs. They don't accept them here for recycling as it costs more to recycle them than they are worth. As a household of five, who each eat yoghurt or compote twice a day, that makes for a whole heap of tubs just dumped in the landfill or incinerator pile.

I was never keen on holding onto toilet roll centres, mind you, and never ever used them with the children for craft stuff. At a push I would let them use the middle from the kitchen roll.

I'm definitely a hoarder. I seem to get it from my parents, especially my dad. I've kept things from my childhood that don't even work anymore, including the most obnoxious Tigger alarm clock and one of those robot cat toys. I feel immensely guilty about throwing things out. For the last four years I've been away at university, so I had room to keep all my keepsakes, but now I'm moving back home in the summer, and The Big Clearout will have to happen. The alarm clock and all its companions must go. I simply don't have room for everything anymore.

Me and Mum do like to "keep" bits and pieces, especailly cardboard boxes, and the inners of kitchen rolls for the boys, who enjoy playing "shop" with empty boxes! But every now and again we do have a really good clear out- with rapidly filling black bin-bags. If we haven't used something for about three or four months, it is thrown away! I say sometimes it is very lucky that I don't fit in a bin-bag!

Does saving the funnies/comics count? I began a few years ago with the colored Sunday ones and in the last year I've included the Dailies. (I once saw a fun room wallpapered in the colored ones. It made for some interesting reading) I do this in light that I now have difficulty reading them due to failing eyesight. So why keep things I can't read? They make computerized magnifiers for vision challenged folk and I will soon acquire a system. If I time it right, friends and family will remark at my funeral, "I never knew his grin to be so wide."

Sue, on the island couldn't you think of your landfill as the nearby alternate storage room? Things shouldn't be too far from being able to be recovered. Or is all your bulk waste ferried ashore somewhere? I save the paper towel inner rolls to use as document mailers. I last mailed a newspaper section five years ago and who can know when they'll next be needed? Instead of chucking the old plastic Ice Cream containers, I recycle them as containers for a big batch of split pea soup I make and try to poison the neighbors with it. Let them throw them away (after the soup's eaten of course!) I've got to get more sherbet containers. I have a nasty fish chowder in mind next. And old T-shirts? I have enough rag material to make a rug to fit an airline hangar.

I occasionally keep plastic tubs on hand for various purposes. But I live in a small apartment and I only have so much storage space. I have a small area dedicated to these kinds of things, but when it's full up I pick and choose what to keep and recycle the rest.

I have tried to transfer my hoarding yen onto my computer. I have more 'favorites' than I could visit in a week. Now I have a virtual useless mess to go with the real one.

mehaul, we have a massive incinerator for our waste, we don't landfill here, the incinerator is so large that we might even start burning waste for a neighbouring island - if they pay us enough.

Must....find....virtual....incinerdeletedeletedeletedelete

Oh there it is!

I am whatever the opposite of a hoarder is. I rarely keep anything - my daughter expressed amazement that I'd kept her school reports as she fully expected me to have thrown those away, too. I haven't got them now, of course, as she claimed them. I kept my son's, though. They're good for a laugh when I need cheering up. Other than that, I get rid of 99% of things, but I am very, very good at recycling. I bring things home that other people have abandoned to put in my containers rather than see them go to landfill.

LOL .. what did your son get up to??

I don't like clutter but have one room that everything gets thrown into ... and one cupboard in the kitchen ... but then every few months it gets the better of me and I have to throw it all out.

I like keeping bottle so I can put home made sauces in and then I realise that I havn't made any sauce for two years so could probably let them go.

I've changed my habits last summer - I rededicated a large (25 m²) storage room full of clutter in the basement to become a top of the line wellness center with sauna, steam bath and jacuzzi, significantly limiting my "clutter storage" capacity. It was a really wise choice - so many things turned up in there that I put there on moving in 7 years ago "in case I might need them" and had gone untouched ever since.

It took 8 trips to the recycling center with a pretty large car to get rid of all that stuff. Two trips went to used-stuff sellers where I could donate the things ACTUALLY worth something towards redistribution to people who can use them.

My son's school life consisted of doing as little as possible in the way of work, which is reflected in his school reports. The recurrent theme goes something like 'if he spent as much time on his work as he does on talking (or messing about) he might achieve something'. I used to get the gold stars for daring to turn up at parents' evenings. As far as I know, his leaving certificate is still at the school from 20 years ago, as it certainly wasn't worth collecting. And at first glance he looked angelic - blond hair, blue eyes, butter wouldn't melt - it was all so misleading!

Ouch... that doesn't exactly sound like a successful academic career. Hope he did make up for it later on and found his place in life!

I'm middle of the road, I'd say. I do keep nice glass jars, etc, but only if I have a use for them. I don't use Tupperware or other nasty plastic containers for leftovers - I keep mine in nice containers that I've rescued from other purposes. I've got salad dressing jars from easily fifteen years ago that still get used every day.

There's two types of people in this world - hoarders and purgers. I am a purger in a family of hoarders. I am always trying to get rid of stuff.

However, having said that, I don't like waste so I do try to recycle. I'll try to find a home for things before I just consign them to the bin.

Every week, my rubbish bin is only half full but my recycling bin is always full and I never have enough room in there so there is always stuff waiting to go into the recycling bin.

I take my cans to the local school - they have a recycling bin for cans and they get money for them which is used to benefit the children.

I buy my meat from the butcher to minimise the number of foam meat trays I collect via the supermarket, but the few that I do get are recycled - I take them to the art department of my daughter's college where they reuse them as a receptacle for mixing paints.

I do save a few take-away food containers so that when my foster daughter visits, I can send her home with some leftovers.

I have one cupboard allocated for jars so that I have a supply handy when I make jam, spiced almonds, lemon butter etc.

I have a large box in my closet for things to be taken to the op-shop. Whenever I come across something I think needs to be chucked out, but is too good to chuck out, or something that is perfectly okay but I have no use for it, it goes into the box. When the box is full, I take it to the local op-shop. I manage to fill it at least once a month.

I use Tupperware to eliminate the need to buy plastic bags or plastic wrap for leftover food. I used to store things in pretty glass jars and containers but now I avoid them because I am a real "butter-fingers" and I am constantly dropping glass things on the tile floors. It's amazing how far small shards of glass can travel across a room. Even when you think you've thoroughly cleaned and vacuumed the floor, your bare feet always manage to find that tiny shard you missed...I finally decided that plastic was far safer.

May get some eyebrows raised with this, old toilets make great planters. One bonus is you dont have to paint them have about four of them in the garden. Though i suppose it depends on the colour of your old bathroom, managed to aquire all white ones.

My mother-in-law had the barest minimum of everything, she wwould get rid of something if buying an item. Her son obviously rebelled at this as he was a dreadful horder. I am a horder too so it was just as well that we had a large house when we were together. My daughter is taking after her grandmother to a greater extent, she gets rid of things quickly.

"she wwould get rid of something if buying an item"


I have a friend like that. She has a rule - everytime she buys an item, or something new comes in the house, she gets rid of somethig, so that the number of possessions remains constant. If she buys a new shirt, she gets rid of an old one.

That must keep the man situation in order too!

How about it? Have the ladies been recycling us gents all along?

No, heck, I usually keep a few spares around...

Toilet roll middles make great root trainers for things like sweet peas, and you can just plant complete with the middle as it rots down. Old ice cream containers are ideal for freezing down leftovers or batches of cooking in.

Spare men are ideal for changing lightbulbs and all those little odd jobs around the home.

Little odd jobs, like the ones that are hard to figure out?

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus.
Men are dark haired; Women are all blon, er, are those jokes allowed here?

You never met my ex-husband, he was useless at practical things.

You never met my one and only and still current husband, who is positively lethal when it comes to doing those little odd jobs around the home! The best tactic, in fact, is to send him off to the pub while I get to it myself! If it requires brute strength, however, he's your man

Don't knock it Toni, at least he offers.
My first gave me a Magimix for Christmas. For his birthday I bought him a Black and Decker.

Mine didn't even have brute strength, he was the sort of build which would make him a good person to show in those old adverts, the puny one who had sand kicked in his face.

I have a list as long as your arm of my chap's DIY (and other) blunders, the most remarkable of which in my opinion is the one where he managed to reverse our car in our own driveway around the corner of our own house and rip off the passenger door, because he 'hadn't noticed' it was still open while he was doing his manouvre

I guess he must have some redeeming qualities, mind you, as I haven't had the heart to throw him away ..... yet!

Well some things it is just not possible to recycle I suppose Toni.