Do you ever feel like you have too much stuff?

That is a common feeling. Another is the dread of cleaning out the items, and for those with an environmentally-conscious mindset, figuring out where those items are going can be just as stressful.

Aubrei Krummert, owner of the Athens business Real World Organizing, has made her job one where she can be as environmentally conscious and “green” as possible. Krummert is a professional organizer, in the same vein as pop-culture icon Marie Kondo, but Krummert’s philosophy is less focused on minimalism and more geared toward functionality. One of the defining parts of her business is how concerned she remains about the future of the items she removes from clients’ homes.

Because of that, Krummert has become an expert on local ways to recycle or donate almost anything a home would have, and has found numerous ways to divert even the smallest items from landfills. A stray screw? She’ll hold onto that for ReUse Industries. Fraying T-shirts? She’ll drop a bunch off at Goodwill, which recycles fabrics. Even old beauty products are gathered in a big box and shipped off to TerraCycle, a company that offers recycling solutions for almost anything.

In Krummert’s world, everything has a meaningful purpose that allows it to be changed into something new and useful.

Krummert first was introduced to professional organizing seven years ago, and immediately took an interest. Sometimes, she said, her work is just about the material items. Usually, though, the removal of items and organizing of clients’ homes resonates with something deeper than that. Krummert says she starts her consultations by asking about the mindset and emotional status of her clients.

“Because if someone is totally preoccupied with something else in their head, be it major or minor, then I’d rather know that so I know how to deal with their stuff and them, because it’s very personal,” she explained. “It has everything to do with peoples’ lifestyle habits and routines.”

Once she knows what items are leaving and what are staying, that’s when her work as a “master recycler” begins. She works with the Athens-Hocking Recycling Centers, ReStore, Athens MakerSpace and many other organizations (on a local and national level) to ensure that she is discarding items as responsibly as possible. She says the educational component of recycling is one of the reasons why it can seem so prohibitive to begin.

“People want to be green — they do. But the education component of being green is highly misleading. The education component nationwide is something the recycling industries has not done well at,” she said. “As a business owner, I feel the responsibility to take advantage of it, and I see the opportunity and feel the need for it.”

Krummert’s house, where she bases Real World Organizing, reflects that undertaking. In her garage, one wall is dedicated to the sorting of various items that will later be transported for recycling, reuse and more. Of course, she’s not perfect and some items do go to the landfill, but as Krummert said, “once you know, you can’t un-know.”