Most shops are just landfill waiting to happen.

Xiaoxiong...please excuse me if I am not addressing you correctly, I just joined yesterday and I do not know how to do the @Xiaoxiong. Can you tell me how, please? Well, over here in USA where I am, the charity shops are more than happy to receive anything brought to them. What country are you in? I guess that some things that are donated are routed to landfill but if so, donators are unaware of it. Smiles. Maria USA

@MariaUSA I also enjoy a thrift store - we call them charity shops here, which is sometimes shortened to the chazza!

However...having done a number of cycles of decluttering over the last year or so and battled to get rid of things, even my enjoyment of charity shopping has waned. I don't feel so bad about buying things the family or I really need eg. I just bought a trench coat off Vinted for a tenner because my old one is just too ripped and tatty to wear to the office now. But it's far too easy to buy "stuff" just for the sake/fun of it and then the weight of it sitting in my closet, pantry, or in storage is just too much.

It's not that easy to get rid of things once they're in your home, at least here in the UK - charity shops are full to bursting, rag recycling doesn't pay so many companies are not accepting, our local tip won't recycle a lot of things like shoes so it's just straight to landfill. It's certainly better if they came from the thrift store to start with but even still, the weight of all the stuff feels suffocating sometimes.

(This is not true. Different companies who retail SOME of the same brands. But you can't buy Shein branded clothes on Ali (or Temu for that matter.)

Do the planet a favour and give all of these shite merchants a swerve rather than arguing about what labels they sell.

This is not true. Different companies who retail SOME of the same brands. But you can't buy Shein branded clothes on Ali (or Temu for that matter.)

Hello all....I love going to thrift stores and we have lots of them in the area where I live here in South Carolina, USA. I am very excited about a new one to open at the end of next week. It is going to be a big one. Sure beats paying full price for some things. I buy clothes, furniture, kitchen supplies mostly for a fraction of the new price.

I'm currently trying to block AI from my internet use. I don't use it, I don't want it, it uses up a huge amount of resources but there it is now on everything, often appearing without me even asking for it. Absolutely madness.

There was a documentary on Netflix about this and it’s scary. We consume just as much as we throw away. I only ever buy second hand items & don’t buy anything from the fast fashion brands as they are awful quality and don’t last.

Retailers mass produce for holidays & end up throwing out so much of it. Electronic devices built to only last 18 months, Apple devices being GLUED together during production so the consumer cannot get it repaired down the line. Prior to the gluing they changed their screw type so no one could change the battery if it died. They just want us to buy a new phone every 6 months.

Our planet will shed us like a skin in years to come.

Sostrene Green is a weird store to use to make this point. They sell food items, tea, storage, cooking utensils, wooden baby toys ....

Are you only just waking up to consumerism!
It's not just landfill-in-waiting, it's water consumption/pollution, carbon emissions, air pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity etc etc
The answer is to reject it! Only buy ehat you need, buy well and look after your stuff

Wholeheartedly agree.
i walked past a cottage today in a beautiful place. The front room was full of those eco-crime, huge plastic “30” birthday balloons. Why does anyone, let alone a 30 year old, need this shit to mark their birthday. Such a contrast to a natural, lovely landscape that the cottage sat in

I was delighted to find a good old jumble sale when we went camping in the Dales. Kids loved it, we bought a lot of stuff, just chuck in the wash and good as new! Xx

Agree, so much boxed plastic tat which may or may not be recycled. Mostly aimed at kids and the extra cases etc are superfluous to make them seem bigger and more exciting to unwrap.

Sad indeed. X

Everyone's got so.much stuff.
Our local fb page is full.of people giving stuff away.

^ this. B&M full of complete and utter rubbish. Most of it poor quality and tacky looking. All made with the intention that people will put this crap in their houses for a few months and then get rid of it next year when they bring out a different type of fruit shaped vase. Don’t get me wrong, I do shop in B&M for some things so I’m not against the shop as a whole but the sheer amount of home decor and plastic crap they have is obscene.

Could not agree more with this post about tat. But people nowadays are progrmmed to buy mountains of tat.

It is their raison detre. Lets kill ourselves working in shit. pressured over worked jobs so we can go out and buy the Himalayas of tat for me and my young family.

I would also say that some supermarket clothes are really good prices and good design. Not bad quality either.

Think Teso and Sainsbury. Also really miss C&A and Debenhams and BHS.
Bon Marche is quite good for oldies

Also some of the bigger Snotty retailers sell at tat at Top Dog Prices Very pretentious.

Was a teenager in the Sixties with disposable clothes etc.But there was also still a lot of well made quaility stuff around.Meant to last.

Hit the nail on the head. People don't know what quality is any more. Very Sad

Byeee
😻
Xxx

In terms of the issue of "stuff" in general, I'm the sort if willing victim of "dead people's stuff" and am really trying to get my head round sentimentally detaching from it as I'm horribly aware that if I dropped dead tomorrow my poor DS will have my flat and a storage unit to deal with.

I have my Mum's stuff, some of which is useful furniture, plus ephemera from my Nana, I have late DPs stuff ( probably the hardest to deal with for obvious reasons, but I'm three years in and am trying not to be Miss Haversham). I have stuff of his Mum's (not dead but end stage dementia in a nursing home) and his "Auntie Jean's" stuff.

It was difficult to deal with it all when I should have done for various complicated reasons, and now my Dad has had to move out of his marital home and has a storage unit of his own that we need to sort into his new flat, but he's 85, very frail and has been in hospital for three weeks. My desire for him not to die is selfishly partly underpinned by the fear of adding his stuff to the pile.

Again, we come round to our complex psychology and attachments. In some weird way, the things we own are proof we existed perhaps?

This thread is so interesting and is helping me in my ongoing rationalisation of not just physical stuff but emotional attachment to it, and seeing a bigger picture.

Instead, disc rot, delamination and degradation can leave a useless pile of plastic being kept on a shelf.

This stuff may last "forever", doesn't mean it works forever.

Did you go to Jane Norman? MK one? Morgan et tui? Miss selfrisge? Kookai? Were you even in 90s if not shopping the 90s version of landfill here?!

I agree I’m no hoarder but been decluttering in spells as DD now adults and have time. Weeks of bins filled up at home. Don’t even go there in clothes.
sad thing is I look at some clothes I bought in 90s that passed to daughters and the quality and cut was so much better.
i think all today’s young girls would be much happier with less clothes and nicer ones but addicted to wear once for insta. There was more stylish people as couldn’t afford 100s of clothes so you had 5 really lovely ones and re wore no one minded and shared with friends.
i think the tide will change but only when they become unfordable. I love clothes but even I get stuff of vinted now. So does one DD looks at what she wants in Zara current range and gets it almost straight away in vinted

Plus you don’t truly own it, you can buy a song on a platform but you can’t sell it etc.

My family were one of the first not to Christmas presents. All that time, money and effort wasted. I come to the stage of my life where I buy things to replace broken/damaged/worn out stuff. Clothing, if I buy something, I get rid of something.

Yep and that will hit personally. As much as you might not like it consumerism keeps us all in money, security, housing. You can’t just get rid of it.

Re China, pensions and US there does seem to be a contradiction. We can have lower consumption but it’ll cost.

Do you really know people who buy plastic tat and post pictures of it “for the likes”?

This is another thing I can’t relate to, I can’t think of anyone who would spunk £100 on Easter decorations to get a few likes on FB. Neither do I know anyone impressed enough to see a “like” as anything more meaningful than a momentary show of support and liking. Unless you have thousands of followers - and even then only on some forums- likes give no financial return.

presumably you’re saying they want likes for self esteem and attention but I find it hard to believe that many people have friends who are so fragile and lacking in self confidence.

Was thinking exactly the same thing