Environmental clutter
Jul. 17th, 2007 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julietI am a great believer in Not Hanging Onto Stuff (or at least, not hanging onto too much stuff). The "it might come in handy" mentality is a recipe for winding up with cupboards full of crap, unable to find the things you *do* want. And living with *stuff* all over the place is stressful, at least for me. If it turns out that X years down the line I need whateveritwas, I can get another one.
The flipside to this is the environmental one. If I get rid of things because they don't have an obvious/immediate/probable use, isn't that wasteful? I do my best to get rid of things responsibly (charity shop, Freecycle); but nevertheless, if I wind up needing X, and buying a new X, then that's wasteful consumption.
Buying a second-hand X in that event is one solution (although not always practical). And there are some things that I will hang on to (extension leads being one; also bits of wood, especially now we have the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
allotment). But there's a lot of stuff that could be repurposed, as and when something comes up - should I hang on to all of it, as a grown-up version of the "stuff to make things with" box that parents sometimes keep for tinies?
Currently I think the Not Hanging Onto Stuff is still winning; but I am starting to think a bit harder about this of late.
(Of course, my consumption in general is a bit high, which is a whole 'nother matter; maybe I should think about that harder first. I am a rubbish hippy :-/ )
The flipside to this is the environmental one. If I get rid of things because they don't have an obvious/immediate/probable use, isn't that wasteful? I do my best to get rid of things responsibly (charity shop, Freecycle); but nevertheless, if I wind up needing X, and buying a new X, then that's wasteful consumption.
Buying a second-hand X in that event is one solution (although not always practical). And there are some things that I will hang on to (extension leads being one; also bits of wood, especially now we have the
allotment). But there's a lot of stuff that could be repurposed, as and when something comes up - should I hang on to all of it, as a grown-up version of the "stuff to make things with" box that parents sometimes keep for tinies? Currently I think the Not Hanging Onto Stuff is still winning; but I am starting to think a bit harder about this of late.
(Of course, my consumption in general is a bit high, which is a whole 'nother matter; maybe I should think about that harder first. I am a rubbish hippy :-/ )
