Strypey @strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
If you think you might have a tendency towards hoarding, please, think of the children. Your own, or whichever younger family members have to clear your hoard when you're gone. It's a really cruel thing to do to them.

Anything that might be of ongoing interest (family keepsakes, valuable collectables, etc) is much less likely to be found and treasured, if it's mixed in with a houseful of physical noise.

So be ruthless with stuff. *Especially* if you're a greenie who feels guilt about landfill.
Strypey
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
Maybe hoarding is one way some of us cope with the deep grief, collective guilt, and fear for the future, that many of us feel about the damage our civilisation has done - and continues to do - to the natural world. If so, I get it. I have to fight my inner hoarder every day. But it's a fight worth winning.

Because hoarding *does not help* the environment, or anyone. It just creates suffering, for you living in avoidable clutter, and for whoever has to deal with it after you.
Strypey
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago

One cause of the problems of post-consumer waste, is manufacturers intentionally making disposable items instead of durable ones ("planned obsolescence"). Amplified by forced trade rules that stop governments rejecting low quality imports, despite the fact they end up paying public money to manage all the waste created (or charging the public "user pays" fees). While manufacturers, importers and retailers all make bank.

(1/?)
Strypey
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
One knock-on effect of this is weakening the incentive to pass durable items around. Why would you spend time sorting through mostly disposable old stuff to find them? When it's so cheap to buy something that *seems* like an adequate replacement.

I say *seems* because if you buy $30 shoes that last 3 months, you'll spend much more on shoes in the long run than if you buy a $200 pair that lasts 5 years.

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Strypey
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago

Incidentally this is an example of why it's expensive to be poor. If you need shoes now, you can't afford to buy durable ones, and buying disposable ones takes all the money you might have saved towards them.

Also, you're less likely to have time and resources to salvage durable items from older family and friends as they pass on. Especially when they end up mixed in with mountains of disposable crap, and it's not always immediately obvious which is which.

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Shannon Clark
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
@strypey Also there are fewer and fewer businesses to help you maintain vs replace things. Fewer people have a nearby cobbler or shop that will do alterations or repairs to clothing. Some towns are lucky to have stuff like repair cafes/events to help people fix broken items and even small electronics but most people just throw them away (often not even recycling them correctly as ewaste). But most people don’t know anyone or any business to help with such repairs.
Strypey
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago

Imagine if waste management was funded not by council rates, but by a levy on all imports. With exemptions for items that can be demonstrated to be multi-generationally durable, highly repairable, home compostable, etc.

The primary benefit would be reducing the incentive to bring disposable items into the country. If the levy was passed on to customers, they wouldn't be so cheap compared to durable items. If it wasn't, they wouldn't be so profitable.

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Strypey
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago

Imagine how much stuff we could keep out of landfill if there was a lot less non-compostable waste to deal with in the first place. Not to mention how much stuff we could reuse, and the materials we could recycle or recover, if we could pay people decent wages to sort stuff as it arrives at waste management stations. One in every neighborhood.

Or even pay for regular kerbside collection of unwanted but potentially useful items, and systems to redistribute them to those who can use them.

(5/?)

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Jen
activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
@ambientspace @strypey for a while now I've wondered why destructive mining of virgin resources is preferred to mining old landfills, which are known to be rich in the various materials and minerals we use.

I've heard it said that extracting and purifying from the mixed up mess is difficult. But I'm sceptical, because people also say that plastic is recyclable and heat pumps don't work. I'm also sure there's a significant NIMBY factor.