With so many people making the change to working at home in recent years, there has been a boom in the sales of exercise equipment. With space at a premium in some homes, it eventually begins to be necessary to free up the space again for other uses, and that equipment like weights, exercise bikes and treadmills has become surplus to requirements.
Disposing of old exercise equipment is possible at your local tip, but if it’s still working, you can list it for sale or even for free on local Facebook groups. Alternatively, get in touch with local good causes to sell for funds, or care homes who may gratefully accept it for use by their residents.
The best thing to do with equipment that you no longer want will largely depend on its condition. The easiest category is well worn items that no longer work, which will usually be destined for the tip.
Your local council tip, often called a Household Waste Recycling Centre, will be able to accept worn out or broken fitness equipment of all sizes. Machinery style kit such as exercise bikes, treadmills and cross trainers are normally mainly metal framed, but it’s best to speak to the staff on site to determine which skip it’s best placed into.
The role of your local tip has changed dramatically over recent decades, changing from the public access point to landfill to recycling the vast majority of rubbish that arrives.
In the case of an exercise bike for example, you’ll typically find metals, plastics, moulded rubber in saddles and even small amounts of electronic circuitry in the computer control panel fitted to most models.
The same goes for most cardio fitness equipment for aerobic workouts such as cross trainers, rowing machines and treadmills too – the construction materials are broadly the same, they just offer slightly different methods of workout. From a recycling perspective, there’s relatively little difference.
Sell Or Donate Old Fitness Equipment
While this section applies to things like cross trainers and bikes, there’s a lot more equipment that people buy for fitness.
Some people are in to improving their muscles with strength training, most commonly utilising weights like dumbbells and barbells. More recently, resistance training has grown in popularity too, with resistance bands selling in their millions globally each year.
There’s also yoga mats, skipping ropes and even under desk peddlers that are gathering dust in homes, along with all manner of clothing items designed especially for budding athletes and body builders.
What all of this has in common is that a huge amount of it rarely gets used as intended. Just like gym memberships soar in the new year, only to get forgotten about within a month or two, the best intentions can often fade quickly when it comes to home exercise equipment.
If you’re coming to the realisation that you’re never going to use something, rather than throw it in the bin or take it to the tip, why not do some good with it instead?
Re-use is always better than recycling, and it’s certainly better than it ending up in the ground. Let’s take a look at some more options for getting rid of exercise equipment in a more eco friendly way.
Friends, Family & Colleagues
Most of us know at least a few of those sickeningly motivated people that find the time and energy to go for a run before work, or stop off at the gym every day on the way home.
There’s a good chance that they’ll be interested in taking that skipping rope or set of resistance bands off your hands, as they’re relatively small and useful for a quick workout.
Bigger items like those treadmills are a bit more of a lottery, as they need somewhere to go. You never know when someone’s looking to buy one though, or even has one that’s just packed up and is heading for the tip. Asking around can be a great way to save something from the tip and saving someone a small fortune at the same time.
List It For Sale
Websites like eBay and Facebook Marketplace sell both new and used items, so give you an opportunity to get some of that money back that you spent of items that never really got used as intended.
Staying on the Facebook theme, many of us belong to local groups based on interests or the area we live in. They’ll often be fine with you occasionally listing the items you no longer want for sale, so long as you’re not spamming them too regularly like a desperate business owner.
The trick with selling items second hand is to be honest about their condition and not expect to get a huge amount for them. Stay realistic – if someone is happy to get a cheap exercise bike and they’ll collect it – there’s value in the regained space in your house, and the fact you won’t need to cart it to the tip. In other words, don’t hold out for another tenner that may never arrive – a bird in the hand as they say!
Donate It Or Give It Away
We know that ‘donate it’ and ‘give it away’ sound like the same thing, but we want to draw a distinction. Let’s consider the last one first here, and talk about giving items away, because that follows on nicely from our last point.
If you’ve tried to sell something and had no luck, don’t be afraid to cut your losses and just let someone have it for free.
All you need to do is update your Facebook post, or create another one saying something is free to anyone who will collect – there will almost certainly be a few people in decent sized groups that will find that the FOMO strikes, and that fear of missing out may well result in items sitting gathering dust in their house instead. While it’s nice to think your items will benefit someone else, the primary objective is that it’s no longer cluttering up your house, and it’s not had to go to the tip.
Donating is something we think of in terms of good causes. Places like care homes will often encourage their residents to undertake light exercise, so an exercise bike or portable peddler might be perfect for their needs.
On the other hand, a charity shop could be over the moon with exercise equipment to sell, and that will help a good cause out with extra funds.
Ask around for good causes – it’s common that there will be some that you’d never think about, youth clubs, rehabilitation services and more operate all over the country and will probably be interested.
Equipment Needing Repair
Just because something isn’t working, doesn’t always mean no-one wants it. For example, expensive items like high quality cross trainers tend to cost at least a few hundred pounds, and some run into thousands.
If your ad is honest about needing a repair, it may still catch the eye of a fitness enthusiast that is happy to pay for the repair, or even a company that buys second hand equipment to recondition and resell.
There are tons of options for helping fitness equipment and accessories to get a longer life, and that’s almost always better for the planet, easier for you to get rid of, and cheaper for the new owner than buying something new.
