

On-demand pick up of your unwanted items. $5 a bag - thisisrobv
http://goodandtidy.com

======
imjk
I live in Boston and literally just spend the better part of my day trying to
make a donation. I packed everything up and dragged my stuff downstairs to the
concierge desk in my building, walked 15 minutes to my parking garage to get
my car, drove back to my building on a busy street and double parked to
quickly load up the trunk. Then I drove what should have been a 10 minute
drive to the Kenmore Square Goodwill but turned into a solid 30 min because of
all the traffic from BU's graduation ceremony. When I got there, all the
parking spots were blocked off and police were forcing traffic to keep
flowing. I went around the block several times looking for parking before
deciding it was pointless. I quickly Googled the next closest Goodwill store,
which is in Jamica Plain, and decided to go there instead. There's no
graduation in Jamaica Plain today but the Goodwill store there is also on the
main road with very little parking...

~~~
mmcwilliams
You can always donate to Boomerangs with a little more ease. They're a few
buildings away from the Goodwill on Centre and you can pull into their back
parking lot while you are dropping off. Cool store, too.

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elmuchoprez
As a Midwestern suburbanite, I don't think I understand this service. When it
comes to trash removal, the city already comes around once per week and
collects whatever I put out there. The cost of this is baked into my city
taxes and can't be opted out of so far as I know. There may be some technical
limit as to how much they'll take at once, but I've never hit it. They even
come around and take big stuff, like couches and mattresses, a few times per
year. Is this type of service not common throughout the US?

This is an interesting idea for donatable goods like clothes, but I lose the
write off and I'm not sure waiting around for a pick-up is really more
convenient than just driving the stuff to a drop off location myself.

The only real advantage I see here is getting rid of stuff that's hard to
dispose of: car batteries (you know, cause I'm always throwing those away),
poisonous or flammable liquids, medical waste (which I don't think I've ever
had), etc... but I can't believe that is profitable cargo for them to haul
away at $5/bag.

What am I missing here? Am I just the wrong demographic for this?

~~~
verelo
I feel similar in some ways. I live in an urban apartment building, we have a
"recycle room" where I can leave anything I can produce and it magically goes
away. Having said that, when I rented in a different part of the city we had a
very small bin and shared it with the apartment downstairs. The bin would
often fill up and I'd find myself holding onto trash because I had no room
left for it and no time to drive to the dump. In that case $5 would have felt
like a good deal!

------
moot
I just returned home from hauling most of my clothing to the local Goodwill.
On a related note, I look forward to seeing more people wearing
startup/conference t-shirts around NYC, since they comprised the lion's share
of my wardrobe...

I've been researching these services for the past few weeks since I've
committed myself to liquidating most of my belongings (I live in a small
apartment with no closets -- thanks New York! -- and was inspired by this blog
post: [http://www.raptitude.com/2011/01/i-dont-want-stuff-any-
more-...](http://www.raptitude.com/2011/01/i-dont-want-stuff-any-more-only-
things/)), and would prefer to see them in the hands of friends and those in
need rather than a landfill.

Does anyone have recommendations for where/how to donate more valuable items?
For example, I want to donate an expensive drone I never use, but would prefer
to see it go to a classroom/after-school program. Thinking I'll search
DonorsChoose.org and offer things to teachers, but is there another service?

------
dunham
"Anything that fits into a bag."

I've got a propane torch, a fire extinguisher, various household cleaning
supplies, and about 100 lb of ceramic tile to get rid of. And I have some 3
mil "contractor bags" than can handle more weight than I can carry.

My current plan is to drive the hazardous waste to recology. If someone could
do it for me it'd be nice, but I'm not sure that's even legal. Still working
out the tile thing. Not sure Habitat would want it. I've also got a bunch of
paint, but I know where to take that.

~~~
mrestko
Latex paint can usually be disposed of in normal garbage. Just open the cans
and let the paint dry out first.

~~~
pkaye
Some cities have a household hazardous waste disposal location where one can
drop off used chemicals, paint, etc. They will separate stuff that can be
reused and properly dispose of the rest. The one in our city, we just backup
our car and they take out the stuff while you sit in the car and complete the
paperwork and show an id.

------
declan
This really could be Uber for trash.

I pay something like $50 a month for trash collection services, or around $12
a week. That includes yard waste and recycling.

If I can fit my trash and recycling into two bags per week and find something
else to do with my yard waste, I'll save money by using GoodAndTidy for weekly
trash pickup.

I like their website and the idea, but it seems like a service that may have
trouble becoming profitable based on their $5/bag fees.

~~~
CPLX
I posted my uber for trash comment first, ironically.

I don't think you're kidding though, are you.

------
jarnix
In Paris it's free, you just have to go on this website and tell what you are
throwing away:

[https://teleservices.paris.fr/sira/jsp/site/Portal.jsp?page=...](https://teleservices.paris.fr/sira/jsp/site/Portal.jsp?page=formengine&form=ramen)

BTW in the URL: "&form=ramen" I suppose that the developer was hungry.

~~~
acveilleux
Probably a concatenation of RAMassement d'objets ENcombrants.

------
verelo
I'm struggling to find a privacy policy, is there one? This could be the cynic
in me, but I feel there is more to learn from my unwanted items than almost
any other data source (aside from my email?). Gaining information about people
from what they discard is possibly a great business model, but I think the
situation should be made clear in a privacy policy.

Edit: Changed trash to "unwanted items"

------
eck
My first thought from "properly dispose of, we don't want it in landfills"
was, this is for hazardous waste -- you know, that box of old paint cans and
dead SLA batteries that you know your city has a plan for, if only you could
be bothered to figure it out. If not, maybe the website should make that more
clear.

------
pocketstar
"Currently in the San Francisco Bay Area." Does not pick up in Palo Alto,
Mountain View or Foster City. That's the just few addresses I've tried. A
service area map would be helpful.

~~~
zo1
Also, the whole thing is on a *.com domain and yet from your comment only
services a portion of a single city? I am disappointed.

------
roywiggins
Where I last lived, there was at least one charity that had free pickup by
truck. Not on demand exactly, but they could take anything useful if it was
boxed- or furniture. You could leave your stuff on the porch and they would
shift it for you.

This seems strictly worse and very expensive if you want to get rid of any
significant amount of stuff.

~~~
tomjen3
This one takes none-useful items too. The reason I want to get rid of the
stuff is that it is not useful (unless you really want an old CRT tv or a case
of broken computers, I guess).

------
fragmede
They just updated their text and dropped San Francisco from the list of
supported areas. Currently they are only in Berkeley.

I would use this service. I easily have couple bag of not-quite-trash that
wants to be dealt with. But really, what are they going to do with an old
Nokia cellphone charger? Or a 24" LCD monitor with DVI and VGA input but the
HDMI input is broken. Or slightly damaged clothes with rivets and zippers I
keep meaning to repair but have never gotten around it, so might as well throw
out.

For $5, I can't imagine I'll get any sort of post-processing report about what
they got out of my crap or what they managed to do with it.

Hell, I've got a bunch of crap that I keep meaning to put up for sale on
ebay/craigslist that I never get to. I doubt I'm alone in that regard.

------
oxtopus
In Mountain View, and likely elsewhere in the Bay Area, charitable
organizations make the rounds once a month to basically do the same. They
provide the bags, collect them, and presumably sell what they can for cash. As
for batteries and other hazardous materials, there's a protocol to have the
city pick them up for no charge. I've never had a problem getting rid of stuff
and feeling like I'm doing it responsibly. It's hard to understand what value
this adds beyond immediacy.

At least with the services I already take advantage of, it's all done in
batches and my contribution is low compared to the overall haul. This is on-
demand, so it's likely not as efficient.

~~~
shostack
Any links you can share to these services? Will have a bunch of stuff to give
away soon and I'm not familiar with the various organizations in MV that help
with this.

~~~
oxtopus
[http://donatedav.org/donation-pickup.html](http://donatedav.org/donation-
pickup.html)

~~~
shostack
That's awesome, thanks for the link! Are there other non-profits that have
similar services or just DAV?

------
recursive
I believe CRTs are normally ~$20 each to dispose. I wonder how many I can fit
in a bag.

~~~
covercash
Just drop them off at Best Buy, they claim to recycle them...

------
gatsby
Would be nice if they gave receipts for tax purposes, like the Shyp/Goodwill
partnership did:
[http://blog.shyp.com/goodwill/](http://blog.shyp.com/goodwill/)

~~~
mathgeek
Considering they are charging $5 a bag,I doubt they are a nonprofit.

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raminf
I was looking for extra information so I entered my email into the field.
Figured they'd sign me up for a mailing list like what all the sites out there
do.

I was surprised to see it say "Thanks, expect an email from us first thing in
the morning!"

I can't find a way to cancel the request. Hopefully it'll be in the email. I
understand the need for rapid on-boarding but this was a bit of a surprise.

~~~
savanaly
I'm sure they get a million I don't have anything after all replies to their
morning emails if that's how they operate.

------
vinhboy
I would use this. I have a bunch of old batteries, light bulbs, and random
machine parts thats I been meaning to recycle but never get around to it. If
these guys would properly recycle those things for me, I would pay more than
$5 because I am trying to be conscious about what I put in the landfill.

------
cafard
The District of Columbia gives each household a couple of large-item pickups
every year. (Large item example--old storm windows, say 4 feet by 2.5.) Latex
paint, as someone remarks, can be allowed to dry out and dumped with regular
garbage. The Fort Totten transfer station accepts nastier stuff--solvents,
oil-based paint, electronics--one Saturday every month. And with Goodwill on
South Dakota Ave. NE and Community Forklift in Hyattsville one can get get rid
of pretty much anything still usable.

------
lubos
So they pick up someone's trash and give it to some non-profit as a donation?

Poor non-profits. It will cost them more to sort through and dispose unwanted
items than the value received.

~~~
thisisrobv
Sounds like they're sorting through the contents: "We'll give away or properly
dispose of your items."

~~~
lubos
Disposing items properly costs money. Donating items doesn't. So the incentive
for them is to "donate" as much trash as possible. Then non-profit org will
have to deal with it.

Sorry, I just don't like non-profits being treated as a free dumping site.

~~~
todd3834
I hear your concern and I hope they have no intention of treating non-profits
as a free dumping site. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt and
not just assume the worst of them.

------
oskarpearson
As my wife and I are currently going through Mari Kondo's
[http://tidyingup.com/](http://tidyingup.com/) process, this would be great to
have in London.

Recycling is generally great here, but there are certain things that are
actually quite valuable, but are just way too much hassle to get rid of one-
by-one.

------
jaksmit
I'm not fully sure why someone would use this. Is it for donating stuff, or
garbage disposal?

For my unwanted items, I donate them via
[https://givebackbox.com/](https://givebackbox.com/) \- which gives you a pre-
paid UPS shipping label and lets you ship to Goodwill for free.

------
Procrastes
I'm moving and have recently sold and donated a three bedroom house full of
stuff rather than haul it.

Maybe this a specifically urban need? Up here in my small mountain town (<
4000 pop.), Goodwill, Hospice, Hospitality House (homeless shelter), and
Habitat for Humanity all pick-up free as do the thrift stores.

~~~
notyourwork
Same options exist in Columbus, Ohio. You just have to work around their
schedule, they only come to certain parts of town on certain days of the
week/month.

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jason_shah
This seems good. I like that this has the potential to expand the total pool
of donated items and help reallocate resources to people who need them, while
also helping people clear out their homes too.

------
funkyy
Free in most of the Europe. I am surprised this one will be paid tbh.

------
CPLX
It's uber for the waste management business.

Instacartage.

Asbestos. Redefined.

Or something.

For those of us that lived through the first dotcom bubble this is all getting
more and more familiar.

------
jellicle
No no no! Good-and-Tidy just doesn't get the business model here. They need to
do it for free, and make it up on volume.

