Getting ready for your annual spring clean? It turns out you can cash-in on your clearout. We’ve rounded up some clever tips and tricks to get a bit of a bonus while you refresh your space.

Not only is recycling gathering steam with its money-saving potential, but it’s also the way forward. With Aussies generating 74 million tonnes of waste every year (and only recycling around 60% of it!), the improper disposal of rubbish is a major contributor to pollution, landfill crowding, and the production of new energy-intensive materials.

To make recycling work for your wallet, here are some ways you can earn a little extra while being environmentally friendly:

The fast fashion industry is notorious for creating a product cycle so fast that waste is generated at an exponential speed. On average, every Australian sends 23kg of clothes to landfill each year. 

While the best ways to reduce your contribution to this major polluting industry (responsible for roughly 10% of the world’s CO2 emissions) involve slowing down the rate of your clothing purchases and re-examining your relationship with fashion, sometimes your closet truly does need a deep clean. Let’s face it: those old concert t-shirts are more hole than t-shirt at this point.

Upparel is a great resource for clothing recycling that nets you a reward. While only 15% of clothes donated to charity are sold in Australia, textiles and shoes sent to Upparel are sorted into ones for reuse and ones for repurposing. Clothing for reuse is passed on to charitable partners, while the rest is broken down and repurposed into insulation and filling for pillows and the like.

Upparel is partnered with several brands, where a $25 single box collection (up to 10kg) of clothing, textiles and shoes from any brand nets you a reward (T&Cs apply):

If your clothes, shoes or accessories are still in decent condition, you might also want to consider the thriving resale markets of Depop and Facebook Marketplace. While it can be difficult to find an audience, a bit of research could help some beloved items find a whole new life - while you get a little spending money on the side.

Collecting empty beauty, skincare and haircare products used to be a whole genre of Youtube videos, but now it feels kind of gross. 

The thing is, a lot of containers and packaging for the bits and bobs in your bathroom aren’t as easy to recycle as they might seem. Things like compacts, pumps, spray nozzles, and droppers are classed as “hard to recycle” - they don’t go in your kerbside recycling bin, but are components that can be recycled.

Brands like Mac and Lush have their own schemes. Return six empty products to Mac to receive a free lipstick (T&Cs apply), or five eligible empty black pots to Lush for a free Fresh Face Mask. Lush have also recently changed this scheme to allow an alternative option, where you can receive $1 off your purchase per empty piece of eligible packaging you return.

Terracycle has made recycling these hard-to-dispose-of products much easier for the masses, partnering with several companies to incentivize recycling. Empty packaging is sorted and repurposed into playground surface covers, bottles, watering cans, shipping materials, and more. Many of their partners will dispose of your goods for free (select Priceline, David Jones and Mecca locations) but others do offer you an incentive:

Those likely aren’t the only bottles you have hanging around, though!

When it comes to your standard beverages, it’s pretty easy to pop most of them in the recycling bin and feel like you’re doing your job. 

Sometimes the ease of a nearby bin makes trashing those bottles all too tempting, but the long-term success of the container return scheme in South Australia shows us that when people are incentivised to recycle, it can be an overwhelming success. In SA, where a bottle collection program has been up and running since 1977, there’s an 80% return rate.

While 10c may not seem like much, there are some occasions where this can seriously pay off. After your next party, try to take all those empty beer bottles down to the bottle collection - even if it’s not worth it to you, the accompanying charity donation is sure to make you feel good.

These vary state by state:

If you’ve been cleaning out your linen closet, it might be time to get rid of some of those ratty old sheets and bleach-stained towels. 

Many of these will be eligible for donation - especially for places like animal shelters, which don’t need them to be in top notch condition - but if you’re looking for little lifestyle hacks, here’s one:

Tackling two birds with one stone is Sheridan, which aims to divert these materials from landfill and repurpose them into yarn that is then reused in future goods. When you donate your (washed) quilt covers, sheets and towels into the store, you’ll receive 5% off your next purchase. If you need to make a replacement, this could add that little bit of extra love to doing something good for the environment.

New tech moves faster than you can possibly keep up with nowadays. Good luck staying up-to-date with the newest mobile phone when a new one is always just on the horizon!

Meanwhile, technological waste is a major environmental concern, with e-waste having a devastating impact on global health.

Thankfully, the phone refurbishment and second-hand industry is heating up. Other than buying second hand and keeping costs down, you can also score some sweet deals by trading in your tech. We aren’t just talking phones, either - from fridges to video games, trading is a great way to score yourself some savings.

A clean space can help you better understand what you actually need, and what you already have (but that you might have forgotten about). 

Hopefully the promise of a little bit of extra change has put you in the right frame of mind to get cleaning!

Want to bring that green streak to your finances? Check out our guide to some of Australia’s ethical banking options. Find out more tips and tricks for everyday finance at our Family Finances hub.

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Using her Bachelor of Communications in Writing, Sara has spent her professional career creating content and crafting copy. Her writing has been published in academic journals and literary anthologies in the US and Australia. She’s determined to make the world of finance accessible and loves finding a way to make money interesting to the everyday person.

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