When you want to give but are ready to give up

Mary Mueller has stumbled upon a basic truth of modern life: It’s not easy to give things away.

When Mueller, her husband and three daughters moved to a new home in Moorpark, she seized the opportunity to get rid of furniture that wouldn’t work in the new house, toys the children had outgrown and other items the family no longer used.

“You want to be a good steward and pass these things on to someone who can use them. But they don’t make it easy,” said Mueller, who did not have the time or inclination to hold a garage sale.

“They” are the charitable organizations that have long been the recipients of Americans’ largesse. Not so long ago, charities’ trucks rumbled regularly through neighborhoods, picking up anything anyone wanted to give away. These days, the trucks are fewer and the charities are, well, pickier than they used to be.

In her quest to unload stuff, Mueller discovered that the Goodwill no longer sends trucks out to pick up goods. Instead, it has drop-off centers. Mueller’s local center wouldn’t accept toys. Other charities she contacted wouldn’t take furniture.

“The whole thing is so mind-boggling,” said Mueller, who finally went with the Salvation Army, which took everything except for one lamp it may have thought was broken. “There are too many rules, and then there’s who takes what and when.”

Indeed, rules and restrictions have reshaped the donated-goods industry. California’s ballooning rates for workers’ compensation insurance have deterred many charities from taking heavy items such as large appliances and sofa beds for fear of injuries and resulting workers’ comp claims, said representatives of various charities.

The state’s Electronic Waste Recycling Act has imposed stricter guidelines for recycling and collecting products known as “e-waste” -- such as computers and televisions. And to keep costs down, charities no longer accept unusable items.

“Anything we can’t sell, we end up having to dispose of and it costs us money to get rid of it,” said Doug Barr, president and chief executive of Goodwill Southern California. Trips to landfills take funds away from agency programs to help disabled and disadvantaged people become self-sufficient, he said.

Even usable items aren’t always accepted. “Sometimes we have to discontinue taking certain items because we have too many of them, or they may be seasonal items [that we can’t store],” said Ed Abrams, of the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center in Long Beach.

Whatever the reasons, consumers are increasingly running into roadblocks as they seek to dispose of their excess stuff. It is no small relief, then, that entrepreneurs have recognized their dilemma and come up with some solutions.

One of the most successful of the bunch is the Freecycle Network, an Internet-based movement with more than 1 million members in 51 countries that pairs givers with getters in their own areas. Through www.freecycle.org, people join local groups. They send e-mails offering items to fellow members (7,000 in Los Angeles).

The governing rule: Everything offered must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages. Interested members respond, the giver decides who gets the item, and the giver and recipient agree on a pickup time.

Another site on which you can advertise your goods for sale or giveaway is craigslist, www.losangeles.craigslist.org, an online classifieds section. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works also sponsors the Los Angeles County Materials Exchange Program, https://ladpw.org/epd/lacomax, where you can post such hard-to-recycle things as electronics, industrial materials and textiles.

Robin Davi, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Assn. of Professional Organizers, regularly taps resources that welcome goods (many of which are posted on the NAPO site, www.napo.org).

“There are outlets for many, many things, but it’s getting to a point that they can take only so much,” she said.

Donors will likely need to identify several avenues for getting rid of disparate items (check out Internet lists such as www.clutterbuster.net/donating.htm; www.erecycle.org; www.stuffyadontwant.com; or the Department of Public works site, https://ladpw.org). If you’ve advertised an item for “free” in your local shopper, and you are still stuck with it, you could pay someone to haul it away.

And there is 1-800-Got-Junk?, a user-friendly Canadian company that has more than 140 franchises in North America, including 12 from the Mexican border to Santa Barbara. Short of hazardous waste, it takes anything (some of the more unusual items: 19,000 pounds of frozen animal carcasses, boats cut in half). For a fee, a bright blue truck will pull up at your home, uniformed men will leap out and take your junk away -- but not necessarily to the dump.

“Our first goal is not to take it to the dump,” said Zac Sheldon, coordinator for the franchise owners in Southern California. The company will instead recycle what it can by distributing items to charities, shelters, centers and churches.

The cost depends on how much room your stuff takes up in the truck (a truckload in L.A. would set you back about $435), and it includes pickup from inside the home and clean up of the area. “You don’t have to prepare it,” Sheldon said. “We take it where it lies.”

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Advice for unloading some of your excess stuff

Looking for a new home for a specific item? Here are some possibilities:

Appliances: Major Appliance Recycling Service, (800) 960-2125, or www.marsventura.com/appliance.htm (fee).

Barbie dolls, GI Joes: Send to Elizabeth Mason, c/o The Rag Street Recycling Program, P.O. Box 69A116, Los Angeles, 90069, www.thepaperbagprincess.com.

Boats: Pacific Marine Foundation, (888) 443-8262 or www.pacificmarine.org.

Computers: Goodwill Industries, (323) 223-1211 or www.goodwillsocal.org (no pickup); Los Angeles Department of Public Works collection events (also accepts cellphones, TVs and printer cartridges), (888) CLEAN-LA, or https://ladpw.org (no pickup); 1-800-Got-Junk?, www.1800gotjunk.com (fee); SoCal Computer Recycling collection events (free) or pickup (fee), (310) 626-8180 or (877) PCRECYCLE, or www.socalrecyclers.com; also takes TVs, radios and other electronics.

General household goods: Salvation Army, (800) 95-TRUCK, or www.satruck.com; Society of St. Vincent de Paul, (323) 224-6280, or www.svdpla.org.

Tires: Los Angeles Department of Public Works waste tire collection events held periodically, https://ladpw.org (no pickup).

Tools and building items: Habitat for Humanity outlets called ReStores, www.habitat.org/env/restores.html (no pickup).

Also watch for periodic collection events sponsored by your city or county.

-- Susanne Hopkins