In those weeks leading up to your move, you will discover all manner of items throughout your house that you no longer want or need. One of the worst discoveries a home mover can make whilst taking inventory can be tonnes of unwanted scrap paper. Not only is it heavy when bagged or boxed for disposal, but it can also cause boxes and bags to come apart in your hands.

A nightmare—that is unless you find a way to put all that unwanted paper to use.

When moving, it can be a challenge to ensure nothing gets broken in the process. You may also have to invest both money and time looking for and purchasing packing materials. However, if you put all that waste paper lying around your house to use, you might not have to pay a cent towards packing materials.

Step One: Gather Up All Waste Paper

You know all those forgotten drawers and nooks and crannies where you stash old newspapers, letters, drawings and magazines? It's time to clear them out. Put aside an area of your house where you can create your packing materials. At first, it's going to be mess. But it's worth it.

Step Two: Raid Your Plastic Bag Drawer/Cupboard

Now, you'll need bags, lots of them. Any old plastic bags from your local shopping trips should do. You can also use refuse bags for bigger items like mirrors. Make two stacks, one of paper and one of bags.

Step Three: Hire Your Team

If you have teenagers, they are perfect for this task. Though they might take some convincing! Friends or neighbours may also help if you offer them plenty of tea—or beer, whatever keeps them happy as they work.

Step Four: Create Your Padding

You can turn paper into padding in several ways. You can scrunch up pages into balls, or you can chop pages into smaller strips with some scissors or plain old elbow grease. Once the paper has been prepared, all you need then is to fill up your bags with paper to create a cushion that protects fragile items while in transit inside boxes.

Create an assembly line like this:

• Scrunching Point: Assign at least 2 scrunchers to prepare the paper.
• Bagging Point: 1 person should be enough to fill bags with the shredded paper.
• Storage Point: 1 person could place the different sized bags into piles.

Step Five: Assign Packing to Specific Items and Areas

Once you have successfully created your packing material, count the bags, and then go around your house and work out how many bags you will need for each area. Mirrors can be protected by taping paper-filled bags to the front and back before packing.

With your paper waste put to use and your fragile items protected for free, your move will be much less stressful. If you are more organized than the average person and don't have much paper waste, you can ask around your neighbourhood for paper waste. Your neighbours will probably jump at the chance to get rid of their scrap paper.

Share