By now, if you have been following our clutter busting series, your home should start to be becoming a clutter free haven. However, your work is not done! One big dust collector many people have in their homes is media of all varieties: DVDs, videos, books and CDs.
A huge amount of us have a large collection of CDs or DVDs: either films, music, video games or computer related items. The big, thick plastic cases that these items come in soon take a large amount of room wherever they are placed. The use of CD or DVD racks can make an attempt to tidy this space-taker up, but many fail and can even cause more clutter than they solve!
Bookcase With Storage Bins
Plastic wallets are a perfect solution on cutting down the space needed and are relatively cheap. You can find them in any good stationary/office goods retailer and come in all sorts of varieties. You can get individual wallets or album wallets, perfect for any music collections you may own. For the longevity of CDs and DVDs it is important to store in a safe, sturdy place and must be stored away from direct sunlight or dust - both of which massively impact the life disks.
Digital music has had a massive impact on the music industry for the past 10 years and online films are now starting to follow. There are hundreds of online providers who offer music and films to rent or buy online and these can be watched/listened to online or downloaded to your computer or media devices: mp3 players or phones and the like.
Go through your collection and throw away anything you no longer need. If you have a bit of computer software from 2001 then ask yourself if you are ever likely to need or use it ever again. If the answer is no then get rid. Although CDs, DVDs and their cases are considered plastic, recycling them can be tricky as most local councils in the UK don't recycle them as part of their recycling scheme, although more and more councils are starting to offer a CD/DVD recycling scheme. Check with your local authority for more information. There are also a few companies who offer recycling, although most will charge for the service. Alternatively you could always sell or offer unwanted disks to charities or friends/family members.
VHS tapes, however old, are still to be found in the darkest reaches of many a home. Collect them all together and start to sort them out. Do you really want to keep an obscure film from 1993 that no one has ever heard of? Recycling VHS tapes are as tricky as CDs and DVDs as the plastic they are made from are not generally taken as part of most local councils recycling schemes. Firms do exist, like for disks, to recycle them but this can also come at a cost. Like disks you should look at passing them on to charities or family/friends before you consider just throwing them away.
Books are a massive space taker and clutter up many peoples' lives. A lot of people will have bookcases for storage, and many will already have the bookcase filled - with things other than books! Make sure to use the space wisely. Old books that you have no interest in any longer can be put in straight into 'to sell' or 'to charity' box and, as a last option, can be put into the recycling bin.
If you are an avid book reader but always find you read one book once and never look at it again then consider borrowing books from your local library which is free to all UK citizens. Alternatively you can now download books for, in some cases, free or a small fee. These can be downloaded onto your computer or, for you convenience, handheld book readers, such as the Amazon Kindle.