MARCH is a very busy month if you follow the ‘awareness weeks’ calendar.

Not only is it the British Heart Foundation’s Dechox month, when we give up chocolate to raise money for life-saving heart disease research, it’s National Bed Month, Dole More Fruit Awareness Month and Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.

We are right in the middle of National Pie Week AND National Conversation Week, and of course, yesterday was International Women’s Day (and National No-Smoking Day too).

All worthy causes and fantastic sentiments of course, but buried under the clutter of it all (ironically) is my favourite national week of all, National Spring Clean week.

The joy of de-cluttering. The pleasure of clearing up and chucking out.

Crammed cupboards, messy shelves, untidy drawers – all of them are on my radar now the sun is shining (sort of) and showing up the dusty corners.

Apparently a whopping 80 per cent of us admit to having a drawer of clutter where we squirrel away batteries, pens, elastic bands, bits of plastic that were possibly once useful and therefore could be again even though no-one can remember what they were for, and old mobile phones.

(Incidentally, if you want to get rid of your old mobiles and feel good about yourself at the same time, phone company Three have launched a Reconnected scheme which distributes old phones to people such as those facing homelessness, recovering from domestic abuse or returning home from years in military service.)

I do have such a drawer, and I think I can tick off most of the top eight items this survey reckons we keep for no good reason.

Chargers and plugs? Tick. String? Tick. Takeaway menus? Tick. Calculator? Yip.

While I tell myself most of its contents ARE useful (I do use the scissors and the sticky tape A LOT and those extra curtain hooks do come in handy) apparently I am kidding myself.

According to Three’s own research, 70 per cent of us claim we’ll use these discarded objects ‘one day’ but it’s just not true.

Even though we’re a nation of confessed collectors, we’re also a nation of do-gooders, with 65 per cent of us saying we give our items such as clothes, DVDs and homeware to charity after a clear out.

But more than one in five of us aren’t aware of recycling options for old phones.

The Three scheme is a great idea - partnering with charities and organisations such as housing association the Hyde Group and the Good Things Foundation, which helps people build digital skills, the Reconnected scheme also gives people three months’ free access to the network to help them on their way. (Find out more at www.three.co.uk).

So, as part of my programme of works for National Spring Cleaning Week, I will be incorporating a comprehensive drawer-junk-detox.

And if you’re not a fan of spring cleaning, don’t lose heart – you still have National Singles Day, Nutrition and Hydration Week and, er, National Poultry Day to look forward to.