In my past professional life I was a preschool teacher and director. In an effort to demonstrate to parents and others of my staff ways to save money, I used all kinds recycled items for teaching. I had a bin of spools that the children would use like blocks but also to learned to sort by shape, color size and counting and so on. Eventually parents began to bring me the spools from cash registers and calculators (now that means it was a while ago, right?). Any way, you can donate them to a preschool.
Last January someone on the QB suggested saving spools to track how much thread you used. So, just for fun this year, I have saved all my spools. I dropped them into old green glass canning jars I had sitting out for display. I now have nearly four quarts of spools for 2020. They will go out to recycling in just a few weeks or to a preschool and I will start over. I not only reduced my fabric stash in 2020, I also reduced my odds and ends of thread. Yea!