5 Pieces of Trash You Can Sell on Ebay

5 Pieces of Trash You Can Sell on Ebay

Making money on eBay can be as simple as paying attention to what you're throwing away or recycling.

There are things all around you that you can sell on eBay that won’t cost you a penny.

Want some ideas? Here are 5 to get you started:

Box Tops for Education

If you don’t have children in school, you may not realize that Box Tops for Education is a large fundraising opportunity for schools. By collecting and redeeming Box Tops, schools can earn money and equipment.

Plenty of parents buy extra Box Tops on eBay, or buy them so they don’t have to tear them themselves, so start tearing off those Box Tops from cereals, crackers, and other snacks and pack them in lots of 100.

Recent listings suggest that 100 unexpired Box Tops should get you around $22.

Paper Towel Rolls

What do you do after you use that last sheet of paper towel? Do you throw the inner cardboard core out or recycle it? Most people do. But once you realize that elementary school and daycare teachers worldwide buy boxes of them for craft projects, you may start setting yours aside.

Pack a box full of empty paper towel rolls and you can earn a few dollars.

One recent listing offered 150 “empty paper towel rolls” for $30 plus $5 shipping.

You can pack a similar box full of shorter empty toilet paper rolls, too.

Egg Cartons

Yes, for the same reason that empty paper towel rolls sell in bulk, so do egg cartons. People use them for craft projects and storage devices.

The standard price for 100 cardboard egg cartons seems to be around $35, including shipping. Of course, since you can easily stack the cartons snugly, you don’t need a huge box to pack them in.

Empty Printer Ink Cartridges

Thanks to recycling programs at office supply stores like Staples, there is demand for empty ink cartridges.

Instead of throwing out your printer’s empty cartridges, hold onto them and sell them in lots – the bigger the better to justify the shipping cost. If you work in an office that throws out empty cartridges, see if you can have them.

A recent listing for 300 ink cartridges – the little ones for deskjet printers – was listed for around $35.

Soda Can Tabs

Granted, there isn’t a ton of money to be made on these, but if you start removing the little metal tabs on drink cans – soda, beer, energy drinks – you can make a few bucks here and there.

It looks like you 1,000 tabs are selling for around $10, some including shipping. So you might net $5 for your trouble.

Spending a few minutes each day gathering up household items you normally discard and posting them for sale on eBay can generate decent money, believe it or not.