A blog about sustainable living and personal enrichment


How to make money…selling rubbish!

Don’t throw that toilet roll in the bin!

Selling used toilet rolls on Ebay

Trying to reduce your waste but not sure how? Looking for new ways to recycle old stuff, maybe making some money in the process? Let me explain you how I manage to convert rubbish into cash every month.

I’ve started selling stuff online on a regular basis four years ago, and so far I’ve made around £600 of net sales.

It’s not a huge amount of money, but considering that I sold stuff which otherwise I would have thrown away, I think it’s an interesting result…after all, who would throw £600 in the rubbish?

My philosophy is that it is worth it as long as I don’t lose money. And I must admit I’ve become addicted to the whole thing, so I don’t mind spending time trying to get good pictures and writing listings.

I sell mostly clothes I don’t wear anymore, but the item which is by far the most popular is the most unexpected: empty toilet rolls. And not only around Christmas time, when some people use them to make Christmas crackers.

Selling take away tupperwares, empty eggs carton and empty toilet rolls on Ebay

I have to say it can take some time, but I’ve always managed to sell any toilet roll bundle I listed. As long as the buyer pays the postage, I can make a profit no matter how little: and I have one item less to send to the landfill.

What else can you sell?

But toilet rools aren’t the only unexpected item you can sell online, helping protecting the environment…here is a list of other things you can sell, you will be surprised of what people are buying!

  • empty glass jars; when you finish your sauce, don’t throw the jar away but clean it and sell it instead.
  • used wine corks
  • empty branded boxes; I’ve sold all the boxes of the smartphone I bought, anything with a brand on it seems to have a market out there.
  • eggs cartons, useful for crafts but also for seedlings.
  • take away plastic tupperware; many take aways uses them, and if you wash them they are perfectly fine to be reused and even sold.

Every day we throw away a lot of items without thinking, but many of them can have a second life: remember that next time you are about to throw that toilet roll in the bin 🙂