This is a season of celebration, and though some gifts will be treasured as heirlooms, others will probably end up in Goodwill just after the celebrations.

Whatever happens to our things and so many other items we collect?

That is the theme of the latest book from Adam Minter, "Second Hand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."

"The book is in many ways a book on consuming and human connection to things," said Minter. "And this also turns into a story of how we could reuse them."

The first book by Adam Minter was "Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion Dollar Trash Trade,” before he wrote "Second Hand."

This book – about industrial recycling - received a variety of responses from readers concerning their re-use and resale experiences of personal belongings, which he wanted to write about.

It is a second-hand economy, global and largely not tracked.

"This form of industry is secret, but economies like Africa and Southeast Asian Countries follow second-hand economics. And yet, we don't really have a way to quantify that as states, corporations and politicians concentrate on new products, and just how much we buy new products and produce in the retail sector" said Minter.

Minter travels all over the world to see where our things end up. He is traveling in Minneapolis-St with employees of the housekeeping service Empty the Nest and a transfer manager, Gentle Transitions, in St.Paul, Minneapolis.

"With this almost primitive impulse, we really got into some very emotional situations when people saw how their things are reused or that the stuff of their parents is reused. And then they figure out more often... that there weren't enough people who want it," he said.

He also cleaned up his home in Japan, and found that hoarding things was a national issue, motivated by the post-World War Boom years and a passion for the new fashion and design.

"Hoarding things, is not typically American, but it's something intrinsically human. All of us do it. We want room for the stuff we must store," he said.

In the United states in the last 50 years wealth accumulation and ever bigger houses have coincided. There was an abundance of storage sites in those larger spaces.

"In the United States, there is this combination of extreme wealth and space, which combined to form this trend that would simply not exist at any other time," he stated.

What Minter finds is also a dynamic and sophisticated sorting device. For example, Goodwill clothing is graded as per brand desirability.Torn or soiled clothes may be marketed to the rag-makers, "from washing countertops restaurants and bars to cleaning leaks off of oil pipelines."

Just about a third of the items being sold in the American thrift shop gets sold on average, Minter said. Then this content is recycled for the export industry.

The book of Minter fits with the declutter pattern that the Japanese popular declutter writer Marie Kondo has encouraged.

Minter noted, however that the interest of Japan in decluttering is a consequence of their smaller houses. They like to buy new stuff almost as much as the Americans do, Minter says, which is why they've "built an incredibly advanced economy that moves things through all sorts of re-use levels particularly on the sales side." And contrary to Marie Kondo's focus on clearing the building, "in Japan, depletion and minimisation are really much more ecological in this region

Minter quotes a study from Hamaya, Japan's leading exporter of electric domestic appliances, monitoring where Japanese products end up: Malian acoustic guitars, Nigeria electric guitars, Afghanistan boomboxes, Madagascar thermoses, large chainsaws to Nigeria, Cambridge sightings, etc. The study also mentions a report by Hamaya.

Some of Minter's characters do not want to use their names as the import or export of used goods to domestic producers is in some cases forbidden. The used goods nonetheless move continuously across international boundaries, which are of important significance for local economies in repairing and recycling industries.

However the book is also a tale of family decline and the growing prevalence of loneliness.People collect stuff, but they've nobody to leave them for.

Minter encounters a Japanese woman, in Japan, where the population is dwindling. This woman displayed her grandma's twelve kimonos. The woman sold them because they couldn't be put anywhere.

"The artifacts that had described what remained of the family have been discarded. And I believe that at some point everyone living in today's society had that experience. It's a social issue, it's a psychological issue, it's a problem that is really human," said Minter.

We did ask him of course: what would he offer the loved ones this festive season after touring the world of things?

He says his donation is now based on experiences such as a gift card at a restaurant or a stay at a hotel.

"Without focusing so much on the identity of our stuff, enable individuals to improve their experiences and invest extra time with families."