Money tip: Recycling children’s products

If you’re having trouble unloading your children’s gently used stuff and can’t stand the idea of throwing it away, consider recycling it on Zwaggle.com.

Zwaggle was conceived by Andrew Hoag, a San Francisco-based engineer, and launched in the spring of 2007 to help minimize waste.

To use the service, go to www.zwaggle.com and sign up for an account. Once you’re logged in, you’ll be given the option of creating a post with a picture and description of the item that you’re interested in donating. Users are allotted a certain amount of points for every item they virtually “hand down.” If you’re also in the market for children’s stuff, you can trade in these points for clothes, toys, furniture and maternity gear.

Zwaggle accounts are free, but customers are required to pay for shipping costs, a percentage of which goes to Zwaggle. Right now, the service has about 2,000 members across the U.S. Considering the geographic range of Zwaggle, users would be wise not to offer up anything too large or they may end up shouldering some hefty shipping fees.