How to rehome your joyless possessions in Adelaide

But while the thrill of throwing all your clothes into a big pile or learning how to fold into triangles is an oddly cathartic way to pass time indoors during a summer heatwave, it does raise some specific local questions that the globetrotting Kondo cannot answer.

Namely, where in Adelaide can one offload all the material possessions which, after much quiet reflection and gentle caressing, spark no joy? What can you potentially sell and who will potentially buy? Which op shops are best suited to the stuff you can’t? And what does one do with the charging cable for an old Nokia 3310?

Books

Kondo has spoken widely on the subject of toning down one’s tomes, but as the mixed online response to her Netflix debut has proved, people can be quite attached to their personal libraries. Kondo is by no means advocating a book bonfire. Rather, it’s an opportunity to reconsider the value of packing shelves with unread dead trees to show off how well-read we are.

To sell?
Secondhand bookshops continue to thrive around Adelaide, and many will take books off your hands. They will, of course, need to resell the things, so expect them to exercise some discretion when you attempt to offload your weathered copy of Twilight, Angela’s Ashes or The Secret. They should probably still have their covers as well; as Mary Kosiak from Adelaide Booksellers advises, “If it looks like it should go in the bin… it should probably go in the bin”. Recycling, of course.

Pop Up Bookshop
Adelaide Central Market
Tuesday – Saturday

Adelaide Booksellers
12 Twin Street, Adelaide
Monday – Saturday

O’Connell’s Bookshop
14B Station Arcade, Adelaide
Reopens January 14

New Morning Books
155 Frome Street, Adelaide
Monday – Saturday

Colonel Light Books
542 Goodwood Road, Daw Park
Monday – Sunday

To donate?
For the rest, op shops will happily take books off your hands, and many have a particular interest in the written word such as Hutt Street’s Oxfam Bookshop.

Oxfam Bookshop
5 Hutt Street, Adelaide
Tuesday – Saturday

Rotary Book Exchange
Corner Towers Terrace and Aberfeldy Avenue, Edwardstown
Monday – Saturday

Mitcham Rotary Bookshop
598 Goodwood Road, Daw Park
Monday – Sunday

Clothes

To sell?
So you’ve made a big pile of clothes, and hopefully resisted the urge to put all of them back in your wardrobe. For newer or designer items, it’s worth checking Facebook for clothes swap or reselling groups, especially for popular brands like Gorman where you may find some poor sod who will pay near-RRP for that ‘unicorn’ mustard knit they have been searching for since winter 2016.

Perhaps moreso than books, vintage clothing stores can be very discerning about what they do and don’t buy. After all, ‘vintage’ and ‘pre-owned’ are not necessarily interchangeable, and plonking a bunch of last season Sportsgirl or other fast fashion brands on their counter is a waste of everyone’s time. But if you’ve found yourself with some quality garments that you could in good conscience describe as a ‘beautiful vintage piece’, give these places a look.

Push Pin Boutique
8 Compton Street, Adelaide
Tuesday – Saturday

Fox on the Run
238 Rundle Street
Tuesday – Saturday

Pineapple Vintage
6 Rosetta Street, West Croydon
Wednesday – Sunday

Garage sale
What are the odds that your friends, housemates or neighbours are also binge watching Netflix while nervously eyeing their overflowing wardrobes? Why not pool your aesthetic and social resources and hold a joint garage sale at whoever has the best-lit and most photogenic front yard (most of your target audience will, presumably, be other friends and acquaintances who will see you post about it on Instagram).

To donate?
Realistically, that initial rush of liberation may lose its edge once you’ve gone to all that effort to make some of your money back. Sometimes a clean break is best, and there is no shortage of places that would appreciate your donation – just make sure anything you donate is something someone might wear and enjoy. If you can picture a Vinnies volunteer shaking their head and putting that threadbare Corporate Cup 1998 T shirt in the ‘to bin’ pile, you should probably just do it yourself.

The Magdalene Centre
82 Gilbert Street, Adelaide Monday – Friday

Australian Red Cross
284 Rundle Street, Adelaide
Monday – Sunday

Savers
Kilburn
252 Churchill Road, Prospect
Monday – Sunday

Modbury
1020 North East Road, Modbury
Monday – Sunday

Kilburn
18 David Witton Drive, Noarlunga Centre
Monday – Sunday

Music

As music consumption increasingly occurs through digital means, the shelf space taken up by stacks of old discs, cassettes and records is harder to justify. While the large format artwork and pleasantly anachronistic feel of vinyl can indeed spark much joy, the plastic pull of the CD is less compelling.

To sell?
Luckily, the vinyl resurgence means there are many independent stores who continue to do a solid trade in secondhand wax. Matt Horvath from Clarity Records is happy to inspect your collection in store, or simply email a list to avoid any awkward moments when he gives a hard pass to that old Rolf Harris LP you forgot you had. CDs are a slower seller, however, so expect buyers to be very picky.

Clarity Records
60 Pulteney Street, Adelaide
Monday – Saturday, 10am-6pm, Sunday, 12-5pm

Big Star
160 Magill Road, Norwood
Monday – Wednesday, Friday, 10am-5.30pm, Thursday 10am-9pm, Saturday, 10am-5pm, Sunday 12-5pm

Rocktherapy CDs & Records
536 Goodwood Road, Daw Park
Tuesday – Friday, 11am-5pm, Saturday, 11am-3pm

Rerun Records & Photography
Renaissance Arcade, Adelaide
Monday – Friday

To recycle?
CDs qualify as E-waste and can only be dropped at Electronic Recycling Australia drop off bins, which you can locate here.

Komono

What about all that other flotsam that was filling up the gaps in your draws, shelves and cupboards? The half empty blister packs of expired Codral, the used batteries you weren’t sure how to recycle and that towering pile of Adelaide Review back issues that you once couldn’t bear to part with?

Recycle Right
The 2018 recycling crisis taught us that apparently no one in Australia really knows how to sort their recycling. This website from the State Government acts as a search engine for bins, providing council-specific answers for how and where to responsibly dispose of everything from printer cartridges to USB sticks.

recycleright.sa.gov.au

Tidying Up with Marie Kondo is on Netflix now