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Category Archives: Recycling

6 Factors Preventing You from Decluttering and Cleaning Out Your Home

Decluttering Clean Out

 

Decluttering is vital if you want to control the accumulation of unused items in your home. You can develop an annual routine to get rid of useless or unused items and live in a clean home. While this looks like a simple activity, you may be struggling with it.

Removing junk from your home can be overwhelming or even scary depending on the attachment you have with the items. However, you should still embrace decluttering and enjoy your space, time, and freedom. Embracing decluttering means sailing above the factors that could prevent you from decluttering. These factors range from social to psychological, and, in both cases, you can seek the services of professionals, such as Junk King Middlesex for your home cleanouts to improve your mental and physical health.

Read on for six factors preventing you from decluttering and possible solutions.

 

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1) You Think You Should Keep the Items for Sentimental Value

Clean Out

 

Hoarding items because you think you should is very common, especially if they remind you of your loved ones. It is very easy to hold on to such possessions even when you would be better off with just the memory. If this is your struggle, you should remind yourself that the feeling is in the act and not the object, and weigh the benefits of keeping the item versus throwing it away.

If you have too many items that belong to other people and you cannot enjoy them on your own, it is time to consider releasing them. You can even hand over the items to your other relatives rather than have them lay idle in your cabinets or space.

 

2) You Are Storing Items for Other People

Some people get stuck with clutter, claiming that their children or grandchildren will inherit their items. While this seems like a good gesture, you could be passing on a burden to the next generation by making them store items that they would not keep if it were up to them.

Thus, before you decide to do this, consider the duration you want to keep the item, the type of item you are keeping, whether the intended person will like it and if they will treat it as precious. If the intended party is of age, you can talk to them to know whether they are comfortable with your decision, as this may save them a lot of guilt should they want to dispose of the item in the future.

 

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3) You Are Storing Useless Items Thinking They Will Be Useful in Future

Most individuals struggling to declutter usually state that the items in their house are there if a need arises. They even worry that if they dispose of them, they will regret it in the future, which is why they store them. Talking yourself into keeping items just in case you need them is very easy and can convert you into a hoarder. Thus, before storing items, ask yourself whether you are likely to use the item in the next decade and if it is easy to find in case you need to buy another one when the need arises. If your answers to these questions disqualify your reason, then donate or dispose of these items.

 

4) You Are Shopping More Than You Are Taking Out

Clean out

 

The 24-hour economy allows everyone to shop anytime they want, increasing the chances of re-cluttering. If you have difficulties throwing away old or useless items after shopping for new ones, decluttering will be an issue. For others, it is the guilt of wasting money by throwing items they spent money on or the feeling that these items are still in perfect shape that prevents them from decluttering. Thus, if you fall in either category, you should consider a professional home cleanouts company to help you get rid of these items lest you get trapped with clutter in your home.

 

5) You Feel Safe Having Lots of Stuff

Sometimes, your fear of scarcity in the future could make you hold onto things in the present.  This scarcity mindset makes you hang on items as they give you a sense of security even if you are not using them. Thus, to deal with this, you should change your view on decluttering as something that gives you more space and freedom to enjoy valuable things in your home.  While you may feel safe having many items around you, a cluttered space could be your source of stress and burden, and it may just be the right time to appreciate that you don’t need as much to live a fulfilled life.

 

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6) You Feel Overwhelmed With the Idea of Decluttering

Depending on your decluttering routine, you could have many items to dispose of. This can make decluttering a tiring experience mentally, physically, and emotionally. You may also not know where to start, and the clutter could weigh you down and make you feel defeated. While you may justify it, this is not an excuse to avoid decluttering your space. Instead, you should dive in and start with the smallest room to the largest. As you continue, you will gain the momentum, confidence, and motivation to keep going. Over time, you will see the results and appreciate your decision to start small.

 

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Decluttering Pick Up

Decluttering can be tasking physically, emotionally, and mentally because of the amount of work involved and the items, some of which could be sentimental. While you battle the above struggles to let go, you should be gentle with yourself and take each day at a time, not forgetting to celebrate your small wins. Also, you should focus on mending habits that could accumulate clutter, especially if it has to do with your shopping habits and keeping non-essential items for security reasons.

Finally, do not let your busy schedule make you live in a cluttered space. If you live in the Middlesex, Massachusetts area, including Amesbury, Andover, Bedford, Billerica, Boxford, Burlington, Byfield, Chelmsford, Derry, Dracut, Dunstable, Georgetown, Groton, Groveland, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Nashua. Feel free to contact Junk King Middlesex at (978) 212-3973 when you are ready to let go of all your clutter and start all over in your spacious and clean space.

 

 

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Wooden Pallets Removal: An Essential Plank in Commercial Junk Removal

Wooden Pallets

 

Business owners know how frustrating it can be to have new inventory coming in and not enough space. New supplies typically come on pallets or within cardboard boxes. These can eventually pile up, contributing to clutter in warehouses and storage facilities. 

 

At Junk King Middlesex, we help businesses to declutter and make room for new inventory. We try to recycle upwards of 60 percent of every commercial junk haul, as well, so that wooden pallets and cardboard materials get recycled. We also take plastic and metal containers, in addition to wooden pallets removal.

 

Metal, Plastic, and Wooden Pallets Removal 

 

Pallets usually come in three flavors: metal, plastic, and wooden. Junk King works with local recyclers to give each of these materials a second life. Wooden skids and stringer pallets can be recycled along with plastic pallets, pallet boxes, and solid deck pallets. Scrap metal and pallet trays are also made of fully-recyclable metal materials. 

 

The National Wood Pallet and Container Association (NWPCA) says that 1.9 billion pallets are used every year in the United States. The lion’s share of these pallets is constructed from wood (approximately 95 percent), whereas the rest are made from wood composite, plastic, or corrugated metals.

 

The funny thing is that a large number of pallet producers themselves often cannot say what kind of lumber comprises wooden pallets. That’s because a variety of hardwoods and softwoods contribute to wood pallets. Mills in different parts of the country process different woods, depending on the growing region and harvest that year. 

 

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  • Recycling Wooden Pallets 

There’s an unquenchable industrial need for what is known as remanufactured or reconditioned pallets. These are sometimes also called ‘combo’ pallets because they are made out of the materials of yesteryear’s pallets. That is certainly much better than chopping down more trees! 

 

The hospitality and beverage industry also has a great need for off-size custom pallets, so business owners and supply chain managers in these industries predominately rely on remanufactured pallets to economize. There’s an international standard known as ISPM 15 (export shipping) that remanufactured pallets pass with flying colors. 

 

Wooden pallets removal that goes towards remanufactured and reconditioned pallets help the environment, too. A lot of people have the hopeful thought that wooden pallets can be popped into landfills with no harm done. Aren’t wooden pallets biodegradable? Somewhat. The truth is that wood products take, on average, about 15 years to decompose in landfills. 

 

  • Issues with Plunking Pallets in Landfills 

The problem with putting wooden pallets into landfills – aside from taking these pallets out of the recycling and reuse circulation – is that they are treated chemically.

 

A chemical treatment can make pallets a less attractive option for bugs and mold, but it can also be worse for the environment if the pallets are piled up in a local landfill. A particular chemical known as methyl bromide can harm the local environment (water, air, and soil) and the ozone layer. 

 

Wood actually decomposes with the help of fungi, and this fungus relies on damp conditions to do its work. Mostly because landfills themselves are overcrowded, the wood pallets piling up in landfills don’t have the right conditions to decompose naturally.

 

Landfills have been a widespread American phenomenon since the 1960s, but that model is breaking down because the landfills themselves are severely overcrowded. The landfills these days are usually too wet (for too long) or too dry to accommodate the fungi growth which would decompose pallets. 

 

The lack of proper conditions to promote fungi growth coupled with chemical treatments of the pallets and overcrowded landfills calls for an alternative solution. At Junk King, we pioneered that better way a long time ago, since we started recycling-based junk removal nearly twenty years, back in 2005. We also offer a 100% quality guarantee to complete peace of mind. 

 

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Pallets and Commercial Junk Removal 

 

Beyond warehouses, pallets can be an issue bedeviling construction job sites, proper managers, and storage facility managers. Once the new equipment comes in or the tenant skips town, who’s there to pick up the mess? At Junk King, we’re here to help with wooden pallets removal and a host of other commercial junk removal services, including: 

 

 

Wood products made up around 10 percent of the material that Americans sent to landfills in 2017, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This is higher than you might think because 11 categories made it into that study, and the weight of all this wood taken collectively is pretty substantial, to the tune of about 12 million pounds of wood sent to landfills in 2017. 

 

Wooden pallets were actually about 90 percent (by weight) of the 10 percent of material sent to landfills in 2017. All of these pallets are still trying to decompose in overcrowded landfills today. Wooden pallets removal with Junk King can dramatically cut down on the amount of wood forced to decompose in landfills every year. Remember that about 2 billion wooden pallets are circulated every year in the United States. 

 

Junk King takes all kinds of scrap metals in addition to wooden pallets removal. What some may be surprised to discover is that these two items can cross paths – wooden pallets are often fastened together with the help of nails. These nails, in turn, can be difficult to remove from pallets, and they often just stay in place if the wooden pallets make their way to landfills instead of being recycled properly. 

 

While most wooden pallets are repurposed into tomorrow’s wooden pallets, they can also be turned into mulch and kindling. The catch is that for wooden pallets to be turned into mulch or kindling they can’t contain nails, since nails hidden in wooden pallets can ruin the machines that turn pallets into mulch. Recycling is the way to go. Simply consider that wooden pallets make up 50 percent of the hardwood consumption in North America every year.

 

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Need wooden pallets removal? Feel free to contact Junk King today and set up an appointment online or call 1-888-888-5865 (JUNK) to get one step closer to eco-friendly commercial junk removal.

 

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Understanding Refrigerator and Freezer Recycling in Middlesex

appliance_removal

 

The Environmental Protection Agency says that there are about 10 million refrigerators and freezers thrown away every year in the United States. That makes sense considering that every home has at least one fridge and the restaurant and hospitality industry relies on them to run their businesses. 

 

But how the heck do you get rid of your refrigerator? True, some municipalities will take your refrigerator as part of their curbside pickup programs, but that leaves the problem of how to get your refrigerator or freezer to the curb in the first place. What if your refrigerator has been on the fritz for years and is collecting dust in the basement? 

 

Thousands of customers have already relied on Junk King to conveniently and safely remove their refrigerators and freezers. At Junk King we’re a full-service junk removal company, so you can rely on us to bring the right equipment and manpower to get a refrigerator weighing hundreds of pounds out of your home or workplace. 

 

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Eco-friendly Refrigerator Middlesex Recycling 

 

The average lifespan for modern refrigerators is around 13 years, but if you’re reading this then your refrigerator might have already given out. Older refrigerators might cost more to repair or replace than it is worth to buy a new one over the long haul. Sometimes older refrigerators contain dangerous chemicals that need to be handled before recycling the valuable metals inside.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency calls refrigerators and freezers ‘durable goods’ partly because they are designed to last three years or more. Large appliances like refrigerators and smaller appliances like toasters both qualify. Various consumer electronics and lead-acid automotive batteries also qualify under this definition. Fortunately, we at Junk King take all of these and much more! Everything except for hazardous waste. 

 

The glass, metal, and plastic from your old fridge can likely be recycled, but you have to be careful about how you go about it because refrigerators can contain harmful chemicals. Older refrigerators can contain mercury and polychlorinated biphenyl sometimes called PCBs. Refrigerators also may contain toxic gases and chlorofluorocarbons that can do serious damage to the environment if not handled with extreme care. 

 

Energy Savings Via Refrigerator Recycling 

 

The good news is that 95% of materials from recycled refrigerators can be transferred into the manufacturing of new products, thus preventing more mining and harvesting of raw materials. You might want to give Junk King a call for removing your old refrigerator once you hear this next fact: old refrigerators use three times the energy of newer, more energy-efficient fridges. The latter is likely marked with the Energy Star logo. An older fridge is said to use 1500 kWh of energy, whereas newer units only require 500 kWh to run at full capacity. 

 

Another reason that recycling is an excellent idea is that the energy savings have a positive impact on the environment in addition to your wallet in the form of lower utility bills. Remember that about 10 million refrigerators are tossed every year in the United States. Among those 10 million units that might otherwise wind up in the landfill, if a mere 0.25 percent (25,000) are recycled then that’s the equivalent of removing the carbon dioxide from 50,000 vehicles

 

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The Refrigerator Recycling Process 

 

There are a few refrigerants and liquid materials that need to be removed from your refrigerator unit before they can be properly recycled. A refrigerant known as R-22 is present in older refrigerators, whereas newer refrigerators contain a less harmful but still pernicious refrigerant known as R410A.

 

Refrigerants, Condenser Oil, and Heavy Metals 

 

The Environmental Protection Agency says R410A is less harmful to the environment than R-22, but each needs to be treated with respect to avoid environmental damage. Refrigerators also have a part called a compressor, which some have called the ‘heart’ of the fridge because it ‘circulates’ the refrigerant throughout the system to keep all of your food nice and cool. (Ironically, the compressor adds pressure and warmth to make the refrigerant hot.) The compressor allows the refrigerant to cool down, condense, and turn from gas to liquid. 

 

All of this is made possible thanks to your compressor, true, but that compressor, in turn, requires compressor oil. Compressor oil needs to be removed from your refrigerator before the recycling process can get underway. Likewise for any mercury in the refrigerator. Mercury is a heavy metal that was used predominately in refrigerators before the year 2000 or so; mercury, like lead, can contaminate local groundwater and soil if left in landfills, so it needs to be properly handled before recycling, too. 

 

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Recyclable Metals, Glass, and Plastics 

 

In the same way that aluminum cans are coveted by recyclers because of their resistance to corrosion and ability to be repeatedly recycled without a loss in quality, the aluminum in your refrigerator is of the most prized components for recycling. That said, several metals, such as steel, and plastics in your old fridge can be recycled once the junk removal professionals at Junk King pick it up. 

 

Modern fridges typically have tubing made of copper, which is highly recyclable and a hot commodity of late. Both the aluminum and copper in your refrigerator are used partly because they provide a shot in the arm to your fridge’s overall efficiency and have unmatched thermal transferring. The upshot is lower utility bills, a fridge that lasts many more years, and food at just the right temperature! 

 

Certain components in your fridge are also made of plastic, which can be readily recyclable. You might have also noticed that the back of your refrigerator appears to have sheet metal. That’s exactly what it is, and it can be recycled, as well. A thick layer of sheet metal is usually employed by refrigerator manufacturers to encase the refrigerator’s cooling system and further increase efficiency. 

 

Ready to kickstart the process of recycling your old refrigerator with Middlesex recycling? If you’re ready for Middlesex recycling and for Junk King to stop by your home or workplace to pick up a refrigerator, consider booking an appointment online or calling 1-888-888-5865 (JUNK) today. 

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What is With the Recycling Fee Anyways?

So, throughout our time doing junk removal, we have charged recycling fees, or surcharges, for certain items. No one likes them. I don’t like them. So, I figured I’d go into why we charge them and why they are important. The basics of it, are that some sort of special handling is needed somewhere in the disposal of the item. In a lot of places in the world, and even in certain places in this country, it’s possible to just take the items and pitch them in a hole in the ground. But here in Massachusetts, our landfills are quickly reaching capacity, at which point they are closed, and our environmental laws are a little tougher, which amounts to cleaner water and air. For each item, there’s a different story. It’s probably pretty boring to most, but if you want to know a little more about the waste stream, read on!

Television Recycling & Disposal in Massachusetts

So, let’s start out with the dreaded television. This is one of the most common items that we pick up. There are of course multiple types of TV. The most common one we have picked up through our history is the Cathode ray tube. (CRT) The CRT is the old-style TV, that everyone has in their attic or basement. They’re heavy and bulky and no one uses them anymore. The process of recycling a CRT starts with breaking down the outside. Typically, the black plastic is removed and can be recycled, although it has no value. Then the circuit boards are taken out, and some wiring, which has a little bit of value. But the real reason for the surcharge is the leaded glass. The core of the TV is a glass tube that makes up probably 80% of the weight of that TV. The real challenge, because there’s no use for leaded glass currently, is to melt down the glass, and separate the lead, and the glass, both of which have some value. But the process is extremely energy-intensive and costs quite a bit of money to accomplish, hence the extra fee.

Newer TVs do not contain leaded glass, but they often have fluorescent bulbs in them, which is another challenge for recycling. They contain a lot of circuit boards though, and a much lesser volume of materials compared to the old TVs, so in a lot of ways, they are a leap forward environmentally over the old tv screens. Still have some technical challenges, but they are better.

junk removal service recycling

Air Conditioner Recycling & Refrigerator Recycling

Second, and another common one is the Air conditioner or the refrigerator. Both contain refrigerant, which is damaging to the ozone and is a pollutant to boot. Many will call this “Freon” but freon is a brand name, so refrigerant is the proper term. This one is a little more of a problem because there are people who exist in the world who will just cut the refrigerant lines and harvest the copper and scrap it. This is illegal for one, and in actuality, I think the fines are $25,000 per occurrence, per item. So, if you are considering hiring someone who’s not charging a fee for these, be cautious to ask what is going to happen with the item. In our case, we put them aside and hire a certified technician to come out monthly to properly pump out the refrigerant. It’s the right thing to do.

Mattress Recycling in Massachusetts

The last common item with the list is Mattresses. Mattresses, do not contain hazardous materials like refrigerants or lead. Instead, they are a technical challenge. You see, when we bring items to the transfer station, they are typically chopped up by machinery. That machinery crushes, and grinds, and rips materials up, so that they can be sorted as different grades of material, that move to the proper area for recycling or landfilling. So, the problem is the spring steel in the mattress or box spring. That steel is flexible and durable, so when it hits one of these machines, it doesn’t shatter or break. It often binds up within the machine, getting wound up in the rollers or whatever you call the mechanism. Know what happens then? The whole line has to get shut down. There’s nothing more expensive than a piece of machinery that is shut down! So, because of this, they need to separate out the mattresses and bring them to a place that disassembles them by hand so that the components can be properly separated.

Tire Recycling & Disposal

Tires. The last surcharge is a less common one because, realistically, when you get your tires changed you tend to leave the old ones at the tire store. But for some car aficionados or do-it-yourselfers, you might have a set of tires, or maybe snow tires, in the basement or in your garage. Tires are a waste ban item from the landfills, and as with the other items, have a specialist disposal company that deals with them. We have a company pick them up, and transport them down to New Bedford, MA where they deal with the process of shredding the tires. Sometimes this is turned into that rubber mulch on playgrounds, and sometimes it is used as a backstop in firing ranges. But it needs specialized expensive equipment to get this done, and so there are only a few companies who will do it, which results in that recycling fee.

So, there you have it. Our whole list of recycling surcharges explained. We have spent ten years honing our waste stream to get the best pricing, with the most responsible recyclers, in order to keep our prices as low as we can. There are reasons we need to charge the fees, and no matter who you choose, keep in mind they should be paying these fees as well. If they for some reason can get away without charging the fee, you should ask yourself why that is. With a reputable company, and there are many out there, you don’t have to worry about getting a phone call from the police asking why your items were dumped on the side of a street!

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Junk King Middlesex
216 Tyngsboro Rd
Chelmsford, MA 01863
Hours: M-F: 7A-3P, Sa: 7A-2P

Providing junk removal services to the Middlesex area, including:

Amesbury
Andover
Atkinson
Auburn
Bedford
Bedford
Billerica
Boxford
Burlington
Byfield
Chelmsford
Derry
Dracut
Groton
Haverhill
Lawrence
Lowell
Nashua
and these nearby zip codes:
01450, 01470, 01471, 01730, 01803, 01805, 01810, 01812, 01821, 01822, 01824, 01826, 01830, 01831, 01832, 01835, 01840, 01841, 01842, 01843, 01850, 01851, 01852, 01853, 01854, 01863, 01865, 01899, 01913, 01921, 01922, 03032, 03038, 03060, 03061, 03062, 03063, 03110, 03811, 05501