Helpful Tips for Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of year again – time to give your house a good once-over. Read on for some tips to help make it easier to clear your home of things you no longer want or need.

Electronics, batteries, etc. are so difficult to get rid of. If you have an old TV, refrigerator or cellphone you’d like to dispose of, you may want to try one or more of the following places:

Home Depot and Lowe’s will take aerosols, non-leaking car batteries, nickel metal hydride, lithium, nickel zinc and nickel cadmium and rechargeable batteries, cellphones, CFLs (compact fluorescent lightbulbs), fertilizer, plastic garden pots and trays, latex paint, varnishes and lacquers, thinners and strippers and oilbased paint. If you buy a new appliance from Lowe’s, they will take away your old appliances for free. For Home Depot in Honesdale, call 570 253 3148; the number for Lowe’s in Scranton is 570 344 9200. AT&T, Best Buy, Dell, LG, Samsung, Sprint, Staples, T-Mobile and Walmart have various options like in-store drop-off sites, mail-in recycling programs, trade-ins, etc. to help you dispose of your old cellphones and mobile devices. Another place you may want to try is smartphonerecycling. com. They will erase your data, refurbish your device and send it to our troops. Visit their website for details!

Best Buy, Dell, HP, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Staples and Toshiba are places you may want to check out if you are getting rid of an old PC. In addition, Lexmark, Office Depot/OfficeMax, Sharp, and Staples will take printers and toner cartridges. Call to find out if they offer mail-in recycling, have drop-off sites or free haulaway options.

Has your refrigerator conked out? PPL will take your old refrigerator for free and give you up to $35.00 for it. Easypeasy! Just call 800-342-5775. If you have an old TV you want to replace, check out Best Buy, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Staples for either drop-off site recycling, recycling events or haul-aways. Now that you’ve reduced your stash of old electronics, why not reduce the amount of mail you receive? (If you’re like me, you get catalogs and other junk mail that automatically ends up in the garbage. Wouldn’t it be nice to cut down on unwanted mail?) Luckily, you have several choices:

To eliminate credit card offers, call 1-888-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688.) To opt in or opt out of insurance and credit card offers, you may want to try optoutprescreen.com. This site may ask you for your SSN, but it is not mandatory. This site is authorized by TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.

A national ‘do not mail’ list is directmail.com. Once you have completed and submitted the online form, your unwanted mail should be reduced.

To stop receiving mail from certain mailing lists, go to dmachoice.org.

You may also want to consider switching magazines and bills to electronic delivery.

What about purging unwanted emails from your inbox? Fortunately, there are a couple of step-by-step online guides to help you reduce the amount of spam you receive. Check out norton.com/internet-securityhow-to-spam-spam-go-away and hellotech.com/blog/howto-stop-spam-emails. Cleaning out your closet (and the rest of your house)? The Salvation Army in Honesdale is once again accepting donations. They are located at 206 Willow Avenue; their phone number is 570-253-1101. They will accept furniture, small appliances, clothing and shoes. They will not accept any baby items (including baby furniture), old console TVs or large appliances.

Habitat for Humanity accepts gently used appliances, building materials and home accessories for their Restore program. Habitat for Humanity is located in Nanticoke PA and their phone number is 570-258-0998. And lastly, in Tanglwood Lakes, we have a trash compactor and recycling bins on Ruffed Grouse Drive. The compactor is for household garbage only (no building materials, please); the recycling bins are for bottles, cans, and paper.

Please rinse out your food containers before placing them in the bins and refrain from putting greasy pizza boxes in the recycling bins. Most of all, please do not place any Styrofoam or plastic bags in the recycling bins. (I like to use a paper bag, fill it up with recyclables, and place the whole thing in the bin).