What is in your closet? My hall closet is a mysterious place. I do not know what happens every few months. All sorts of things seem to gravitate to that location and make my neatly organized little storage area decidedly not neat.

There are many other mysterious places in homes across America, like storage rooms, junk drawers. I absolutely have a shiver run down my spine sometimes when I need to check these places because I do not know what extra items might be lurking there. At this time of year though, we must be brave. It is an urgent pre-holiday time period. Make room now for holiday gifts headed your way.

We must move out old decorations to make way for newly purchased ones. We must round up the cell phones and tablets and laptops and computers and game systems to make way for the hottest things on the electronics market that we have on our Christmas wish lists. We need to clear out those gifts from the past year that we were hoping to re-gift to someone else (hopefully not the same persons that gave them to us in the first place). We also need to clean out clothes closets and shoe racks and kids’ toys to make room for new duds and all the wonderful toys that Santa will bring.

Cleaning out areas and looking for ways to recycle some of these mystery items might stem from a selfish reason to recycle but it is still one that helps our environment by keeping many items that can be reused or recycled from ending up in landfills and minimizing the amount of toxins that can leach out of household hazardous items like electronics. One of the easiest ways to make a daily difference for a healthy environment is to recycle throughout the year.

We provide quarterly events to make recycling household items easier with our Recycle It! fairs. At these fairs we have collections for numerous household items that cannot be dropped off at local recycling drop off centers. This quarter’s fairs are scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 18 at three convenient locations:

• Liberty County Health Department, 1113 East Oglethorpe Hwy. in Hinesville

• Liberty County Community Complex, 9397 East Oglethorpe in Midway

• Walthourville City Hall, 222 Busbee Drive in Walthourville

Here are the items we will recycle:

• Electronics and electronic accessories, including cell phones and accessories.

• Household paint (the cans must be sealed well and clean, not rusted, and at least half full). This paint is donated for reuse purposes and so it must be viable. If you have old paint in inadequate containers, please open the cans, add either sand or cat litter and let the paint dry up completely so that you can then toss the cans in the regular garbage.

• LED, CFL and fluorescent light bulbs.

• Used motor oil and antifreeze.

• Car batteries and household batteries.

• Printer ink and toner cartridges.

• Telephone books, large sale catalogs and books.

• Household goods, clothes and shoes (gently used, please).

• Old prescription medications and over-the-counter medications (no needles or syringes or liquids).

So start now. Take a look at what is in your closets and storage rooms and junk drawers in time to have a very happy holiday with all of your new stuff. As you approach the Christmas holidays you can be nestled all snug in your bed with visions of sugar plums dancing instead of stuffed closets and drawers.

Make every day an environmentally kind day by making a difference with Keep Liberty Beautiful — call 880-4888 or email klcb@coastalnow.net.