Declutter · Laundry
How to organise a laundry
The short answer
The laundry takes an hour and is mostly chemicals and things kept because they might be useful. Start with cleaning products: duplicates, ancient bottles and one-job purchases, remembering that half-used chemicals are hazardous waste, not bin fodder. Then the bag of bags, keeping a sensible number. Then rags and old linen, of which a household needs far fewer.
What order should I declutter the laundry in?
- Cleaning productsDuplicates, ancient bottles, things bought for one specific job. Half-used chemicals are hazardous waste, not bin fodder.
- The bag of bagsEveryone has one. Keep a sensible number and check whether the rest are soft plastics.
- Rags and old linenThere's a limit to how many rags a household needs, and it's well below what's in there.
What will I find, and where does it go?
Every laundry declutter turns these up. Each has its own page, written for Australian Capital Territory where the answer changes by state.
- Paint & chemicalsACTNothing goes down a drain, a stormwater grate, or onto the ground. Stormwater in most Australian cities reaches the river or the ocean untreated.
- Clothes & textilesNever leave bags outside a closed op shop. Overnight rain or a passing scavenger turns a donation into a dumping fee the charity pays.
- Soft plasticsACTIf it scrunches in your fist and stays scrunched, it's a soft plastic — bread bags, pasta packets, bubble wrap, courier satchels.
Stuck on one thing?
Run it through keep or go, or read the eight thoughts that stall everyone. If it's going and it's big, need it gone in Canberra.
Choose one surface and work on it for fifteen minutes.