@Huma0 Yes, basically anything useful that one puts out by the side of the road here disappears within hours. (that's of course different from dumping off old mattresses and garbage in the woods).
Friends of mine who spent some time in Haiti, doing humanitarian aid, said if you saw a scrap of cardboard lying by the side of the road, when you walked back by 5 minutes later, it would be gone. The country was so poor and deforested and people had no fuel to cook with- even a scrap of cardboard had value.
My neighbor across the street was moving and had put a bunch of stuff out front for anyone to help themselves to. I went over and had a gander, picking up some of his then teenage daughter's toys from when she was a child (at that point she was living up in Canada with her mom, while dad was living in Mexico because he was working here), to stash away for when my grandkids came to visit.
Then I ran across an exquisite antique doll tea set in an antique box. I picked it up, took it up to him in the house and asked, "Andy, are you sure it's going to be okay with your daughter for you to give this away?" He got a shocked look, almost grabbed it out of my hands, and said, "OMG, thank you. This is a family heirloom- it was my wife's when she was a little girl. I would have been in the doghouse forever if this disappeared."
The 3 Rs of reducing garbage are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, in that order. So firstly, we should refrain from producing the garbage in the first place, avoiding over-packaged items, trying to buy as much in bulk as possible, and bringing our own containers back to be refilled if possible, as well as using cloth shopping bags.
Then as you say, reuse- you try to pass it on. There are usually places where people are grateful to receive donations- animal shelters readily accept stained towels, for instance, if your own rag bag is full enough.
