Recyle Week 2024: Things you didn’t know you could recycle for money

One of the reasons you may find yourself in said financial pickle is the fact you can’t resist a good old fashion sale. Once again – we’re not judging you!

But how many of the items in your wardrobe do you actually love to wear, if at all?

Instead of just hoarding a whole bunch of perfectly good clothes, you can recycle them and even make a quick little buck.

There are two main ways to do this:

Set up a second-hand online shop

There’s a huge market on eBay, Instagram and Etsy for second-hand clothes. Spend some time browsing through other online stores to see what other people ask for items then set up your own!

Every year an estimated 57 million ink cartridges find their way into UK landfills, rubbish dumps and incinerators. Considering it can take just one cartridge up to 1,000 years to decompose, these figures are very alarming. It’s easy to recycle cartridges so don’t contribute to the problem – sell them to a recycling company and you’ll also make yourself some money.

There are a whole host of companies that will pay up to £4.50 per empty cartridge! Here are a few you can check out:

Unless you’re fond of arts and crafts, you’ve probably never given a second thought to throwing the cork away after polishing off a bottle of chardonnay.

Well, best stop doing that and recycle them for cash instead.

Believe it or not, wine corks are a super hot commodity among crafty folks. In fact, there is a whole section dedicated to used wine corks on eBay where bundles of between 50 and 100 go for up to £8.00.

We know this may sound slightly creepy, but recycling your hair is – in fact – a thing. But, it’s also mostly for a good cause.

Make anything from £5-£600 for your old, battered phone.

Did you know there are over 80 million mobiles in the UK just lying around doing nothing?

So if you’ve got a few languishing in a drawer or under your bed, now is the time to opt for recycling and get some cash in return!

Still have mascara from two years ago tucked away in the bottom of your make-up bag? Or that lipstick you thought you’d rock on nights out, but were never brave enough to wear? Perhaps it’s time you let go.

Like wine bottle corks, broken plates, saucers, cups, tiles and even mirrors are popular items amongst crafters. Especially those who like making mosaics.

If you have a pile of defunct crockery or building materials, make up ‘surprise’ hampers of between 20 and 150 pieces and sell them on eBay or Etsy.

Boxes of 20 pieces can go for about £8, while boxes of 150 can get you up to £15.

Oh, and another thing popular with crafters is old toilet rolls.

They often need more toilet rolls than they can produce, so are willing to pay for them on sites such as eBay and Gumtree.

Okay, you won’t make a fortune, but £7 for 50 rolls is better than just throwing them away!

If your child has outgrown their love of Lego, don’t even think about letting those colourful little blocks gather dust on some nursery room shelf. Instead, you can make a decent bit of pocket money by selling them on eBay!

Currently, 1kg bundles of average blocks can go for up to £20. Of course, if you have limited release figurines, you can make quite a bit more.

Yes, there are people out there (well, mostly men) who are willing to pay for your used knickers!

It’s weird, you might find it a bit distasteful, but it can be quite lucrative.

There are whole sites set up to help you offer this service, such as:

Sites such as

• PantyDeal
• The Kinky Boutique
• Sofia Gray

You can sell your knickers from about £12 to a couple of hundred quid. One of our readers actually made over £4,500 doing this, so there is real money to be made.