--- title: Thrift Stores Restrict Donations Amid Marie Kondo Show description: Thrift stores are reporting an notable uptick in donations this new year, which many are pointing to as the influence of Marie Kondo. canonical: https://time.com/5517557/thrift-stores-donations-marie-kondo-effect/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-01-31T16:07:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-13T08:21:26.546Z og:title: Thrift Stores Have New Junk Restrictions Amid Marie Kondo og:description: Does it spark joy? og:url: https://time.com/5517557/thrift-stores-donations-marie-kondo-effect/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta1e2c8a627e4aa3f/6989444cb21a9cf3ea50003d/marie-kondo-effect-thrift-stores.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Celebrities Visit Build - October 18, 2018 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Thrift Stores Have New Junk Restrictions Amid Marie Kondo twitter:description: Does it spark joy? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta1e2c8a627e4aa3f/6989444cb21a9cf3ea50003d/marie-kondo-effect-thrift-stores.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Thrift Stores Can't Keep Up With All the Junk and They're Saying the Signs Lead to Marie Kondo > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=a7a879c3-288f-4a78-ab17-734b8c832952&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME for Kids Interviews Marie Kondo [Watch (HLS stream): TIME for Kids Interviews Marie Kondo](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8Xs4XNy3.m3u8) (2:42)  _Published 2017-10-06. Two TIME for Kids reporters ask organization guru, Marie Kondo, how they can make their lives a little neater._  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Jan 31, 2019 4:07 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Jan 31, 2019 4:07 PM UTC While the start of a new year has traditionally been a time to reflect on what belongs in your life and what needs to be eliminated, the first month of 2019 could be upping the ante with donations to thrift stores, which many attribute to [Marie Kondo](http://time.com/5516365/marie-kondo-on-jimmy-kimmel/) and her [wildly popular minimalist organizing method, KonMari.](http://time.com/5493284/marie-kondo-ariana-grande/) Kondo, who wrote about KonMari method (where users are advised to ask themselves if an item “sparks joy” to determine whether or not they should keep it) in her book, _The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing_, recently debuted her own Netflix show called _Tidying Up With Marie Kondo_, where she helps homeowners with heavily cluttered homes organize their belongings and in turn, their lives. Now, however, for one city, the donations are so great in number that a sample of stores in San Francisco that they’re actually putting restrictions in place. According to [_KPIX 5_](https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/01/30/marie-kondo-effect-leaves-bay-area-thrift-stores-swamped-with-donations/), thrift stores in the San Francisco East Bay Area are limiting when and how much they will accept due to the mass amount of donations. ## Transcript So can you show me how to fold these and put them in the box? Okay. [ MUSIC ] My mom always tells me to clean my room And it drives me crazy. How can you make tidying up fun? The ideal thing to do is to actually look at what kind of life you want to lead, look at the room, and then decide how you can make that happen for yourself. So when you look at everything that you have, then you actually look at the items, and then decide for yourself, whether that actually makes you happy, whether it sparks joy. Are American kids messier than Japanese kids? If so, why? So I think kids can be messy in their own way no matter where you go, whether it's in Japan or America. But I think one thing that I do notice is that American kids seem to have a lot of small toys. So something to think about is that you might have a lot of Toys and think about organizing those things. Do you think you could help me organize my backpack? Well the first thing we have to do then is to take out everything in your backpack. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ] It's very important to take every single thing that's in your backpack out, and if you're cleaning your room too, you would do the same thing. [ FOREIGN ] Now that we have everything laid out here, we are going to start looking at every single item and decide whether you really need to bring it with you today. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] Okay. So now that you can see, you can see this pile which actually shows you all the things that you do need and that sparks joy for you, and then there's the other things that maybe you don't need today. Maybe it doesn't spark joy for you immediately and now that you can actually see everything, you can decide for yourself and think about what is actually important. For you. [ FOREIGN ] One important thing, as we start putting things back, is to put them stacked in a way that you can see what exactly is inside your bag. [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ FOREIGN ] This is how we clean the inside of your backpack. 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