Featured Places To Get Rid Of Worthless Books?

I have 3 heavy boxes of old medical books and several other boxes of assorted books that I would feel guilty dumping on my local thrift stores (except maybe Goodwill?) if they would even accept them.

I recall that Half Price Books pre pandemic had a policy that they would accept practically any book and give you cash for the ones with value and recycle the rest for you at no cost. I believe this has changed due to COVID-19 and they have strict limits on quantities and will turn away junk now.

Perhaps I am going to have to throw a few out each week in regular garbage to be rid of them. Was trying to find some of those for-profit thrift donation bins that popped up everywhere a few years back but don't see them anymore.

 

I feel your pain, been there done that. I finally had to just start throwing them in the trash. Just can't justify holding them until we are past this Covid problem to see what various places have for new rules.

 

See if your local library will take them.

 

When my parents and I were moving prior to me going to college about ten years ago we took a truckload of books to donate to the friends of the library. The volunteers that helped us unload loved the 1960's era set of old World Book Encyclopedias that were in incredible shape for their age.

 

Oh, please don't ever throw a book in the "regular" garbage. You can donate to a non-profit thrift or local "friends of the library" shop. You can place in the local Little Free Library (if your community has such a thing.) You can check on-line with Powell's Books to see if you have any volumes they would be interested in buying. You can put together a "shelf" of medical books (for instance) and sell on eBay as such. You can donate to any organization in your community that might regularly have book sales such as the library or a community college. Last resort is a box at curb with sign that says "free."

Debora

 

Ive got so many laying around here,some of them not even that good ! But I just cant bring myself to chunk them out . Theres something so wrong about destroying a book . I was able to unload a ton of them pre pandemic at the hoodwill ,and since the pandemic with most of the libraries still shut down the lady told me books are selling like crazy . id give hoodwill a call and just ask .

 

I used to volunteer at our local swap shop. We accepted current fiction and nonfiction books but no textbooks. They went out of date so quickly. Our advice was to rip off the hard covers and throw them in the trash, and put the paper pages into the paper recycling. There are very few places, especially libraries, which will accept textbooks or encyclopedias. We used to have a dropbox for books from a company that donated/shipped them to other countries, but they went out of business. It's a shame.

 

During the years I worked in a library, this is indeed what we sometimes had to do.

Not EVERY book is worth saving, especially if it's out-of-date non-fiction (science and technology, for instance.)

We used a box cutter to remove the hardback covers, trashed them, and recycled the inner pages with the "regular" paper recycling.

Sometimes, this was PAINFUL to do - but in truth, it is sometimes also necessary!

 

Our local library has a show once a year where people of all ages repurpose books - and some of the ideas are fabulous! This is one example:

 

The director of the library where I once worked was thinking of having something built out of discarded books, sort of like the "front desk" shown below. I retired and moved away from the area, so I don't know if the project ever happened...

 

Here is another idea to ponder. If you have books that may not be popular by subject, there are those that buy books in lots if they are in a certain color for display.

There is an etsy seller, I forgot their name, that mostly sells these books and seems to do nicely. Orange books, blue books, brown books, etc for decor purposes. They even will take requests for certain colors I believe for mix and match. Here is one example
https://www.etsy.com/listing/596664...-1-3&organic_search_click=1&frs=1&bes=1&col=1

I also saw a seller selling books that had no covers, apparently folks buy them too.
Just a thought.
Since shipping is cheap for books it might be a nice way to find new homes for your stash.

 

Like $70 on etsy
https://www.etsy.com/listing/655062919/keepsake-box-from-vintage-book-cover?ref=shop_review

 

Here are the books without covers on etsy.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/872316...f=sr_gallery-1-8&organic_search_click=1&frs=1

 

Have a book burning....

 

We tried heating with them one winter. They don't burn well.

 

I’ve had to deal with this several times. My late mother was a schoolteacher who not only saved every book she ever owned (whereas I donate mine along the way), but she kept them in great condition and put a plastic protective cover on many of them. When she passed away earlier this year, due to the CV restrictions one of the charities that was going to pick up her things flaked. Only Salvation Army was accepting donations, but I had to take them in. I kept some that had sentimental value (many, many) and ended up donating the ones I thought SA could sell (e.g. novels by major authors, coffee table books on Hollywood etc.). I filled up my SUV twice with her books, and there were still many left over. People also buy attractive looking vintage books, but if they weren’t in any of those categories, I had to throw them out.

Another late relative had a law library at the home with books from the 1960s, including an entire set of a long-outdated legal encyclopedia. We called our county’s law library but they passed because they already had multiple sets. Likewise, the local law school libraries. There are companies that will take them for movie props, etc. so that’s what we did with the big sets. They can take up an entire wall. We took many of the individual books for our shelves.

I would also check local nursing homes, homes for foster kids, etc.


Good luck!

 

When a small sink hole started opening up in our yard we took the opportunity to fill it with hopeless books.......

 

Well I ended up taking them to Half Price Books to see if they wanted them. Apparently they found something they thought they could sell since they paid me $28 for them. I will chalk it up as a win. I got them at an estate auction of a physician and had already cherry picked the stuff I had wanted to keep and this bit of cash makes an already pretty good score even better.

 

Well done!

Debora

 

Over here, those would go to Freecycle or Freegle. We also have bookshelves at many railway and Tube stations.