A few months ago, my husband brought home 6 plastic waste-baskets.  Why?  He works for a place that makes kitchen and closet organization units.  No kidding!  He's married to a woman who refuses to throw away most papers or let anyone touch her stuff...hey, that's ME!  I'm not as fanatical as the packrats on the Dr. Phil show, but my amount of mail, magazines, and newspapers is very noticeable.  He brought all those home because they were scuffed or dented, not in perfect condition to be sold to the public.  Are you kidding again?  Trash containers need to be in pristine condition at the point of sale!  Yeeesh!!

Anyway, the kids had been asking for waste baskets for their bedrooms and I always said "NO!  If you have one then you'll suddenly create a lot more trash than you ever did before, just so you can throw it away!"  I was absolutely right, that's exactly what happened.  It happened to me too, now that I have something to throw garbage into, I create a lot more of it.  I still don't throw away my papers, now I just sit here eating all day and tossing apple cores and snack wrappers into my little waste-basket because I have one right next to my desk.  This is SO much better than when I had to actually get up and walk 10 feet to the kitchen to throw something away!  Now we have a waste-basket everywhere we turn, and they all have stuff in them.  Now I have to dump those out all the time.  It's incredible that so much waste can be created where there was none before, or when we had to WALK a few steps to throw it away.

That reminds me of when I was a teenager and I asked my dad if I could have a desk in my bedroom instead of doing homework at the kitchen table.  His answer was "NO!  Because you pile up junk on every flat surface!"  Hmmmm....do you think he knew who I am? 

If you build it, they will come.  If you put a waste-basket there, they will make waste just to fill it up.  If you put a flat surface there, they will put something on it.  Amazing!

Your so right. My daughter and grand kids live with me and I give the grand kids a trash can and it seems like I have to empty it every five hours. If it's a trash can or a flat surface any where they will use it. There are Multi- Millions of people out there and every one of them has a use for some thing you are promoting.

If you put it out there they will come. A friend of mine gave me a ton of little trash bags for cars. I thought I might use them for some thing. I did. I stapled business cards to them and put them in a little box with a sign on the side, "Free Trash bags". Then I put the box out side of the shopping mall were all could see them. Out of 500 all but 11 were gone in 9 hours.

There are things you can get for free to promote your business. Look in the newspaper, put the word out to your friends your looking for free things you might be able to use to promote your business.

I would put business card lables on those trash cans and give them away for free. It would work!

Dan 

Hi kathleen

This is so true, all my kids were like that, take after their father. My husband kids me as I file everything away and only keep what I really need, the rest I shred, garbage man hates me each week.  My husband Bill says that I am a lunitic and loves to tease me by putting papers on the table to see what I will do. He has finally stopped doing it as much as he knows it drives me crazy. Guess I just have been doing it so long and can't seem to get out of the habit. He says he sure hopes there are not too many like me around but said he would keep me any way.

Lauraine

Hi Danny,

You must be a saint to have all those grandchildren living with you!  My parents had 6 of us kids and a grandchild living there for awhile, I remember when my dad turned 50...both of my parents acted like we had to suddenly be more well-behaved or we'd cause him to have a fatal heart attack.  They are both in their 70's now and still very alive.  Ha!

That's a great idea about setting out something for free with a business card attached!  I never would have thought of that.