Reuse and recycle
How you can reuse, recycle, donate or sell items in South Lanarkshire
Many unwanted items can still be useful. Passing things on helps others, saves you space and reduces waste. This page explains how you can reuse, recycle, donate or sell items in South Lanarkshire.
Donate items locally
You can donate good‑quality items to local reuse organisations. Enter your postcode into the Zero Waste Scotland Reuse Tool to find groups that offer household collections. You can also use the Charity Retail Association tool to find nearby charity shops.
Donate by post
Some charities let you post items to them free of charge. You can find details on the Oxfam, British Heart Foundation, British Red Cross and Salvation Army websites.
Donate clothing
The Salvation Army runs clothing banks across South Lanarkshire. Use the Recycle Now tool to find your nearest one.
Many high‑street shops, including Primark, M&S and H&M, have in‑store donation boxes for clothing and textiles from any brand. Some offer rewards for donating.
Schools across South Lanarkshire often have collection points and uniform reuse schemes. Swaddle Hamilton also accepts pre‑loved baby and children’s clothing, toys and equipment.
Donate items online
Websites like Freegle, Freecycle, Trashnothing and local Facebook groups make it easy to give items away to people nearby.
Recycle items
Use the Recycling Locator Tool to find out what you can recycle locally and where to take it.
Electrical items
Shops that sell electrical goods must offer take‑back services. You can find recycling points on the Recycle Your Electricals website.
Hard to recycle items
- soft plastics: many supermarkets accept items like crisp packets and pasta bags
- coffee pods: Podback offers free local and postal recycling
- cosmetics - Superdrug offer a makeup recycling service in many of their stores. Other brands such as Kiehls and Lush offer take-back and recycling services for packaging
- glasses and contact lenses: Specsavers offers in-store recycling.Phones and tech: Freedom Mobiles and Music Magpie offer recycling and trade-ins
- ink cartridges: Tesco offer in-store recycling and many printer brands such as HP and Canon offer free returns
Sell your items
You can sell unwanted items online through eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree or Vinted. In person, try local car boot sales or stores like CeX.
Reduce waste
Register with the free Mailing Preference Service to cut unwanted mail.
Using a reusable coffee cup can save waste, and many cafés offer discounts.
Revolve Recycle in Cambuslang also runs weekly clothing repair sessions.