Most shops are just landfill waiting to happen.

I volunteered in Oxfam a couple of years ago and we got dozens of boxes from Inditex - the company which owns Zara, Pull and Bear, Bershka. Each of the 500 Oxfam shops got boxes so there must have been literally thousands. Probably tens of thousands of boxes. All were PACKED with brand new stock, most of it was internet returns, nothing wrong with it. Just that it wasn't worth their time restocking it. Everything from little £10 t-shirt tops to £150 jackets.

Now it's great that they made a corporate donation to charity of their excess and we sold it on at hugely reduced prices. But that's just one fashion company of hundreds, the amount of waste is just shocking.

Shops are closing at alarming rates in my area and being replaced my B&M, Home Bargains and The Range. These shops are the main culprits of throw away shopping but without them we would have nowhere to shop.

The most effective way to get to this is via price. But you can see the impact if there’s anything like a price increase on stuff from China or other cheap production places.

It was meant to be a bit of levity...

Any thread like the present one will come down to a bunch of complex moral arguments about balancing the freedom to make one's way in the world with the question of responsibility towards others and future generations. One person's special purchase is another's frivolous waste. One's shoe cupboard (to take one example) can be anywhere from a pair of clogs for life to Imelda Marcos-style excess.

I have no answer to these questions. I just found it slightly amusing that the Shopping panel scrolled by as I was going down the thread, and then a wrap-around ad for holidays popped up. The fact that we're all here in front of this website is essentially because of consumer capitalism, whether we like it or not. 🙏

Return to places like Shein go directly to landfill
There was a scandal a few years ago where it was revealed that Burberry were incinerating unsold stock because reducing the price would affect the brand.

This also begs the question of what happens to the stuff people don't buy ....
That probably ends in landfill as well
Because if shops change their displays/stock every few weeks, there's no way everything sells out.

Pretty much this.

When on maternity leave I remember seeing a bargain hunt type show with a Whitefriars vase being sold for a ridiculous price, which seemed to start a trend, then I saw the same vase as dressing for a television show. I wondered if the trend had been created by an overenthusiastic set designer at the auction. I'm convinced if you watch enough of those shows you'll see the same stuff being sold and resold and eventually as props on TV.😂

I’ve never really bothered apart from Christmas

Shopping ethically for food seems expensive because supermarkets keep produce artificially cheap by refusing to pay farmers a fair price for their goods.

Like most things, it’s all about balance. It’s ridiculously hard to shop completely ethically- not to mention very expensive, especially with food.
Vinted is fun, but there’s a bit of trial and error involved- I suspect some items spend their lives being bought and sold on Vinted.
Some convenient, planet unfriendly items are an absolute godsend - there was a reason plastic got so popular. I remember getting really upset over someone trying to guilt me into using washable nappies (I had mild postnatal depression) and feeling very strongly that I shouldn’t have to have the responsibility of saving the planet at that particular time!
But we can’t carry on as we are, there just isn’t enough planet.

Pointless but hopefully biodegradable. We layer shredded paper in our compost bins.

Perhaps The Multicoloured Swap Shop should make a return but with a larger remit... 😃

Too my mind anyway,I think I saw the most pointless thing yesterday bags of coloured shredded Easter paper.

That's wonderful! Sounds like one community has got it right. It should get on social media and inspire other communities to do the same!

I'm horrified when I see the aftermath of festivals where tents are abandoned with all the other detritus. Who buys a single use tent? (and they're all made of super duper non-biodegradable fabrics too)

The vast majority of plastic and other tat comes from China. I think we need Trump style tariffs on China to ween ourselves off plastic tat on to home produced wooden stuff as was the case pre-plastic.

Where we are we have a brilliant table top sale. One is specifically for babies and children stuff and one is for everything else. People pay £15 quid for a table, there's a £1 entry fee. The entry fee goes to the place hosting (a community centre or school). Things are sold at a reasonable price. At the end there is a massive Barnardo's van that takes everything that people don't want to take home as it's not absolute tat. Over the last 10 years they've made something like a hundred thousand pounds for a Barnardo's.

I bought absolutely all of the kids clothes and presents for years from there and bought 100s of books for the school library. Totally brilliant.

Many charities these days don't want used toys, clothes, and bedding, even if in good condition. They want everything new. That's definitely been a block in getting rid of stuff.

I haven't been to a landfill - I don't think they're open for public visits!

How come the tat sorted and put into stillage? I thought it was just thrown into the ground? Or do they separate out the tat and recycle it in some way?

Gosh, I don't even know if my rubbish is sorted or just plonked into the ground from how they pick it up.

Plastic recycling is very dubious. Best is to buy natural fibres, keep until they get beyond repair, and then dispose of properly so that they biodegrade.

I think car boot sales replaced jumble sales.

Yes I agree. I totally blame social media. People’s entire careers now is simply buying stuff to show on their page and waffle about and encourage you to buy it too. Our children are absorbing this and it’s affecting them. My daughters will tell me about something they’ve seen on kids YouTube (which I heavily limit anyway and am now thinking of blocking altogether) that they want because some child influencer is flogging it. The skincare craze for tweens, it’s all rubbish being put in their faces by kiddy influencers. Grown women are buying a dozen dresses, trying them on (presumably returning them once they’ve conned you into buying them). I’ve unfollowed people because they are always shopping and displaying the tat. Another floral midi? Because the 30 floral midis you sent now aren’t enough????

I just want it all to stop.

Oh, I remember jumble sales, in the church hall in the Eighties! You don't really see them anymore. I suppose people sell things online instead. The humble jumble sale!

The thing is, even with jumble sales, everything gets thrown away eventually. I keep and use most of my things, but this thread is bringing to the fore my guilt about having anything beyond the essentials, since everything will be thrown away eventually.

But hopefully recycled.

This is what people seem to be having difficulty understanding. That nobody is saying consume NOTHING, but just that we need to consume LESS. And obviously it's easiest to start with the poorly made tat.

Thank you for sharing this outlook. I am a bit of a hoarder. ("I can use that small piece of cloth for something!" 5 years later it's still at the back of the cupboard, unused.) I find it very difficult to throw things away. This outlook changes my perspective!