Here's how to sell your old toilet roll for cash (2024)

Got a pile of old loo roll tubes building in the corner of the bathroom? Some people are making good money selling toilet paper rolls online...

Usually, the sight of a finished toilet roll would fill you with absolute despair (and rage for whoever was supposed to buy the next batch). But what if reaching the end of the loo roll was a sign of cash to come?

Believe it or not, your laziness towards getting rid of those cardboard tubes could be about to pay off – big time. Some eBay sellers have been taking to the auction site to flog their cardboard loo roll tubes in bulk and earning a surprisingly decent amount of cash in exchange.

So just how many people are selling toilet paper tubes and, more importantly, what are people actually paying for them?

Also addicted to buying stuff on eBay? We've got plenty of tips to help you find some bargains.

How much money can you make from empty toilet rolls?

Looking to sell your empty toilet paper roll? Bizarre as it may seem, buyers are more than keen to snap up these tubes of cardboard. Whether it's for arts and crafts, gardening, making bird feeders or to use as toys for furry pets, they have many uses.

At the time of writing, we saw a bold seller flogging a box of 220 tubes for an impressive £45.00 plus £8.75 P&P. Though it's perhaps unlikely you'd make quite this much, we see many people on eBay trying to sell empty loo rolls for up to 15p each.

While you're not necessarily going to become a millionaire this way, making any money for something you're likely to be collecting anyway, and would otherwise throw in the recycling bin, is definitely worth it. In fact, toilet roll tubes are some of the best things to recycle for cash.

All you have to do is take a quick photo, post the listing on eBay and take them to the Post Office when they sell. Simple as that!

And, if you want to reach a wider audience, you could try selling them on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtreetoo.

Tips for selling toilet roll tubes

Here are some top tips to make more money selling toilet roll tubes:

1. Sell multiple loo roll tubes in bulk – Collect as many as you can over a few months and sell lots in one package. A listing looks much more appealing when there's a mountain of them on offer rather than just a few, and people seem keener to part with cash for larger quantities.
2. Offer free (or very cheap) post and packaging – Asking for £22 P&P is setting yourself up for failure. Ask around your local shops for decent (free) cardboard boxes to send them in, and pack them neatly. Neater-looking collections go for a higher value. Try to add postage costs into your asking price so you can offer it for free – this will look much more tempting to buyers.
3. Collect empty toilet roll tubes as a household – Since everyone will be contributing in their own 'special' way to producing the empty loo roll tubes, why not make the whole thing a combined effort? Get everyone to chip in a few quid and buy the toilet paper in bulk (look out for supermarket deals, but sites like loorolls.com have 36-packs for around £10 at the time of writing). Then, use the money you make from eBaying the tubes to go towards the next bulk order of toilet paper.
4. Ask for toilet roll tubes from others – Your neighbours will be tossing these tubes out every day, so ask them if they'll kindly donate to your entrepreneurial efforts to help get your numbers up.

Find out how to also make cash from the old CDs, DVDs and games you don't use anymore.