30 Day Declutter challenge – in a zero waste way

Have you thought about decluttering and organizing your home, but not so keen on throwing things away? Try a 30 Day Declutter Challenge, but with a zero waste twist!

If you have been thinking about reducing the ‘stuff’ in your home, it can be hard to know where to start. There are a few different approaches to moving towards a more minimalist lifestyle. Some focus on removing one item a day, others work through a list of different areas of the home.

What is a decluttering challenge?

The approach that appeals to me is a 30 Day Declutter Challenge. I first heard about the idea on The Minimalists podcast. They discuss how to live a happier live with less stuff, by rethinking what your usual spending habits. Their view on life is that we don’t need to keep buying things to be happy. And yet, it is so easy to slip into the lifestyle of wanting more, spending more, and getting into debt because of overspending.

It’s great when you get to the stage where you are more careful with your spending now, as I am after taking on many of the ideas of minimalism. But, I still have way too much stuff, despite regular tidying and organizing sessions. So I am doing the 30 Day challenge in May 2022.

How does the 30 Day Decluttering Challenge work?

The idea is simple, but the challenge gets harder every day!

• On the 1st day of the month, you find one thing to declutter,
• On the 2nd day, you find two things to declutter,
• By the 3rd day of the month, you find three things,
• And so on, and so on,
• By the 30th day, you have to find 30 items to declutter,
• And after 30 days, you have cleared out 465 items!

Extra challenge for eco conscious decluttering!

My added challenge is to not throw away things where possible, but donate, rehome, reuse, recycle or compost them. I don’t want to add to landfill, so will find alternatives to simply binning items.

Related article: How to declutter without being wasteful

I will update this post every week in May 2022 with my progress. At the end, I will list all the items that I managed to declutter from my house. I hope this gives you inspiration to declutter your home too.

Related article: What do charity shops really want you to donate?

Join in the 30 Day Declutter challenge!

I’d love you to join in with my 30 Day challenge!

You can comment below, or post photos in the comments on my declutter challenge posts on my Facebook page Eco Pippa

Looking forward to seeing our progress.

Update on my 30 Day Declutter Challenge – how did I do?

I started strongly! It was so easy in the first week to clear out a small number of items each day.

Giving away items to friends allowed me to declutter a waffle maker, which was taking up space in a cupboard, and a shoe rack we no longer needed.

I returned a lot of items I had borrowed from friends, such as books and games.

I donated a lot of clothing and toys to my favourite Op Shop. And I recycled a lot of paperwork that was filling up drawers and filing cabinets.

Other items I recycled included plastic bottles I was hoarding, cardboard tubes that I wasn’t going to use, and an empty vitamin jar (not sure why I hadn’t recycled it sooner).

I also donated some packaged food to a food pantry, and took some gardening equipment to my local Garden Club.

All in all, I didn’t declutter the total amount suggested by the 30 Day Declutter Challenge, as the last week was too much of a stretch, with other things happening in my life. But I did clear out over 200 items that were cluttering up my life. And only a couple of items went to landfill, most was reused, repurposed or recycled.