Most shops are just landfill waiting to happen.

I watch the Repair Shop which shows that there is a market for some repairs albeit most for a nostalgic reason. Most of the experts are not young anymore (well apart from Will). Perhaps an apprentice scheme would be useful but I'm not sure if you can make a reasonable living once apprenticeship is over.

Zero rating the VAT on repairs would help though. It might encourage me to get my antique clock repaired

I remember the decorated trees being more a mainland European tradition, but when there's a chance for commercial enterprise...

The EU and some US states have right to repair legislation

In the UK there are right to repair regulations:

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9302/?__cf_chl_tk=tGZUVp1HKUkLx6G.HP0vzQXyqH5t4IXltG1CIO9.KqE-1744635892-1.0.1.1-yEFe7k_oPhbysKWKjrxtzhuB5Ci.WvuzqFS_p3jMixY

I agree. The government should reduce or zero rate the VAT on repairs of items to encourage people to have things repaired instead of buying new but also to create lots of new jobs in the service industry which would massively help our balance of payments deficit and reduce the imports of new stuff, keeping more of our money in our country rather than going offshore to China.

I hadn't heard of Sostrene Grene, so I went to their landing page for home accessories. Out of 48 products there, NINE are artificial (i.e. plastic) flowers and plants! So I won't be shopping there any time soon (and I do love a bit of tat now and then)

I agree repairing is expensive. I have a pair of Moshulu shoes I bought 17 years ago (specific time I know but there are reasons I know this)

I have had them resoled, re-healed twice, the buckles replaced once and I've bought new inner soles for them. I've now paid for the shoes three times over. I like them, they are comfortable and as I go out rarely I will keep them but doubt I will pay for another repair

On another note have you seen how expensive it is to have a key cut these days?

Eh?

We are all trapped in this system. Some people are trying to make it better.

I guess something else to consider is how quickly clothes wear out. Some wear out quickly because they are poor quality, not well made or unsuitable fabric.

But there are loads of threads on washing where people are doing multiple loads of washing per day, and tumble drying them because they are washing clothes after 1 wear. Both very frequent washing and tumble drying will wear out clothes, towels, bedding etc . Of course not advocating wearing underwear more than once , keeping your bedding on for a month, or rewearing obviously dirty clothes, but washing eg a jumper because you wore it once is damaging for the fabric and will wear it out quicker (as well as the environmental impact)

Just had an advert for Poundland on FB feed and they are selling wooden spoons with Happy Easter on them? What’s wrong with a standard wooden spoon?

Agree but but I don’t see that anything is going to happen about it,
Its even worse now than it was before due to all the influencers pushing items on everyone, I have stopped looking at things like instagram and have made a decision to not watch any videos/ reels from influencers if they are selling or promoting products ( or themselves)…..I have better things to do with my free time than to spend time listening to sales women / men which is essentially what influencers are

Fast fashion and fast interiors promoted by content creators online are awful.

People update their interiors every few years - back in the day that was unusual.

Recycling is sometimes dangerous as it makes people think it's ok to buy more and more. It's not.

It's harder to buy high quality things now - we bought an expensive garden table from what we thought was a reputable furniture shop and it rusted within 6 months.

My parents have a few Easter decorations. A few I remember as a kid

You are not everyone. Lots of people just throw it out or put it in the attic and forget, so buy it all again the next year. If everyone kept it from year to year, the shops wouldn't be full of it every year as it would only be a minority who'd be buying new stuff. The shops won't be keeping what hasn't sold until the year after so people ARE buying all that tat every year.

Yeah, I don’t understand why people are saying it’s going straight into landfills. I reuse all of mine every year.

Well there's a non- sequitur for you

I don't think the OP is 'judging' people who shop in B & M.
I took the original post as pointing towards the fact that far too much of unnecessary stuff is being produced in the first place.
If it's there people are likely to buy it unfortunately.

There are repair cafes near us but they are about twice a year, that only really works if your item is non essential, or breaks conveniently the week before the repair cafe!

We had a dishwasher a few years ago (I think it was Bosch) the plastic started coming off the "baskets" that held the plates etc. The dishwasher still worked fine, it was probably 5 years old. We scoured online to find replacement parts instead of replacing the whole thing. It was uneconomical to get the parts (they were over £240) so we ended up replacing it. (With a second hand one)

Same with a fridge. The last fridge we had only lasted 3 years, we had it repaired twice but when it broke for the 3rd time there was a limit to the amount of money we were prepared to throw at it.

I do reheel boots and shoes though, and try to repair stuff where possible. We bought a new hoover last year and a part has come off making it really difficult to use. There is literally no way I'm prepared to replace it yet but unsure how to repair (DH has temporarily repaired it with a cable tie!) I'm going to see if our temporary fix will last til the next repair cafe

I just think it doesn't have to be all or nothing as so many people seem to think.

The posters making that ridiculous argument know that, they're just being deliberately disingenuous to justify themselves because it's easier than admitting that that they want to carry on because they don't give a shit about the environment. It's easier to try and justify fortnightly Shein hauls if you've convinced yourself the alternative is a hair shirt.

And when you are finished with your stuff and give it "away", realise that there is no "away".

100% this and we all need to get better at this. I try only to put things in the charity bag that I would happily lend to a friend, and throw out things that are genuinely worm out (better in landfill here than on a beach in Guatemala) but it's hard when you don't really know what is going to sell.

Another ticking time bomb are the garages full of stuff that (some) older people have saved because it might come in useful or is too good to throw our. It might once have been OK but if it's been sitting in a box in a garage for 20 years it's going to be heading for landfill once the house clearance takes place. But those people probably feel all smug about how thrifty they are and how useful their grandchildren are going to find all this stuff one day...

And yet they don't make the connection between their high performance man-made fabrics and the oil industry. At least they could use biodegradable canvas tents.

I just think it doesn't have to be all or nothing as so many people seem to think. Nobody is saying buy nothing or live in a cave. Never have a phone or buy balloons for a birthday party. Wear rags or never buy new anything.

Just that things have got so far out of hand with waste and fast fashion that things have to change. Buy one dress rather than two. Ignore the pressure to change your decor every season, or if you do want different decorations for christmas/easter/halloween, buy second hand or swap with a friend. Just THINK ABOUT what you are buying.

And when you are finished with your stuff and give it "away", realise that there is no "away".

"Who"? Probably the same people who the following week are out blocking roads, airports, spraying Stonehenge with paint etc.

Everyone who wants fast fashion needs to look at those pictures of the clothes on the beach in Ghana. Just appalling.

There was an Irish woman on YouTube trying to use an American accent dragging out her vowels and doing shein hauls and when I mentioned in the comments section about the chemicals in the clothes that go into skin and the environment her response was really aggressive, she said not everyone can afford to shop new and told me to scroll on repeatedly. I mentioned charity shops and that if she wasn’t doing shein hauls every week she could buy less that’s new and better quality but she didn’t want to hear it

Sounds like my dm and I probably say it to my own dd.

similar age to you 😀

mind you my dds tend to be quite thrifty and buy second hand, love Vinted, charity shops and gumtree

I think - judging from this thread - that anything in pp's homes is curated, cared for and essential and anything is any other random house is plastic tat. Your CD collection is a great example of this.
This thread is going like Monty Python's Yorkshiremen sketch - dozens of pps all trying to outdo each other with their competitive environmentalism.
I don't do plastic generally - several rooms in my house are entirely single-use plastic free now - but I can walk into a - shudder - B&M without busting into tears and judging everyone in there.
The privilege on this thread is amazing, and made worse by the fact that posters can't seem to see that money buys you options that others don't have.
This is MN at its worst - judgy, snobby and superior wrapped up in faux naivety about other (inferior) people. Gold stars all round.