#landfillcore...so depressing 😞

[Badvocthebad]

I've been irl shopping recently and, of course, ads all over SM...
The absolute tat being sold in all shops with an "autmnal theme"!
Pumpkin cushions, pumpkin mugs, highland cows (?) on everything from socks to pjs to blankets...
Its all mass produced, plastic crap, probably made by children in sweatshops. (Polyester is plastic for those who aren't aware)
The world is burning. Literally. The over consumption is killing us all slowly (some of us not so slowly..)
I'm not against buying things you need (although how much of what what we buy do we really need?) <just spent a year clearing out 2 relatives houses....trust me, you don't need 2/3 of what's in your home>
Just this week I've bought vintage 100% linen napkins and some dinner plates from vinted. All as new, but used. (I don't use plastic or paper napkins)
Cost me about £25.
Plastic tat is killing this planet, plastic grass is killing the pollinators (they die, we all die...)
It's just so...depressing. It's why I don't really do irl shopping anymore. Even clothes are all polyester/viscose/acrylic messes.
I'm currently in the process of de cluttering my house/loft. I don't want my kids to have to go through what I have over the past few years (this is the 3rd house I've had to clear in a decade)
By 2032, there will be the largest weather transfer in history.
The boomers are dying out and there houses and garages and sheds and lofts and cellars which are full of stuff which will be saturating the market.
It's a sunny Sunday morning here and- yet again - I'm going to be doing a tip run to give things to the re-home section.
I know some will say "well, its free will"
But..is it? Really? When we are now bombarded with ads and insta worthy houses and influencers flogging the latest highland cow merch from b&m?
Aren't we all just being played?
Sorry, bit of a rant for a Sunday morning 😬😕

@70isaLimitNotaTarget
It's hard to be a socially conscious consumer, or at least I find it hard.
How do we avoid everything made in China or Bangladesh? Even expensive items from places like John lewis are all made in China now.
I'm saving up to buy some clothing from Patrick Grants company community clothing, all made in the uk, but its £££

This reminded me of how many people think they have to have a new kitchen and bathroom when they move into a house. And some people seem to think completely changing one’s kitchen every ten years or so is reasonable. When I was growing up in the 80s, I don’t remember this happening. No one was buying new kitchens every 5 minutes. In fact my grandparents still had free-standing units in their kitchen which had been there since the 1950s (same for the crockery and cutlery inside the units).

We moved into our current house 13 years ago. The kitchen isn’t really to my taste but I can tell the previous owner spent good money on it- the quality is good, I just don’t really like the style of the units and worktop. We painted the walls when we moved in and bought some blinds. Also had to replace the dishwasher as the previous one gave up the ghost, but otherwise haven’t changed anything because we couldn’t justify it (both cost and environment!)

im stuck on the fact you’ve just spent a year clearing out two relatives houses and yet you still went to vinted to buy more ‘stuff’. Consumerism is a complex thing- we buy for so many reasons. We hoard for so many reasons.

I completely agree OP

I live in the US and one of the things I love about Americans is their enthusiasm for celebrating different holidays, but it doesn't have to involve plastic. I live in a somewhat snooty area and mostly what I see are autumn wreaths and pumpkins by front doors when we get into October. I would probably feel differently if I lived somewhere where the 20 foot plastic skeletons and inflatable lawn turkeys were a thing.

I used to enjoy shopping when I was younger but have completely gone off it now, and find it quite depressing to even look at online sites to see how many different variations of the same thing are out there. I love and miss M&S but I just looked on their website and there are 644 different pairs of jeans for sale. How??? Why???!!! It's absolute madness.

@noodlezoodle, Clearly the US is perceived by most of the rest of the world as a highly consumerist place, but I have noticed the not insignificant cohort of Americans (mostly women) who are heavily into crafting, baking etc. Would that tend to be more affluent families or not necessarily?

And then on the other hand, there are those who are buying tons of plastic shite and being generally very wasteful. I see on Social Media but don’t know if it’s true that some Americans use plastic or paper plates as a matter of course for their day to day meals (and then throw them away)- have you come across this?

I think the crafting and baking could be from any class or culture really so not necessarily a sign of affluence.

Unfortunately the paper and plastic plates thing is real although I don't know how widespread it is. The US is so enormous and the culture, habits and heritage are so different from state to state that it's hard to tell, and I'm certainly not an expert. But it's a very interesting place!

Unfortunately, neither house had what I required 🤷‍♀️
If I'd wanted sherry glasses, books on ships/Cornwall or pocket watches, or a broken food mixer I'd have been golden...

Hoarding is a complex mh issue.
I'm not sure I'd describe either house as the house of a hoarder. Just the houses of elderly people who'd lived in them for 60+ years and who had long since been able to adequately care for the house/contents/gardens.

Thanks @noodlezoodle, yes, a very interesting place and people!

It’s clever advertising. I was on Facebook and Temu had an advert. Little cute plastic window stickers with pumpkins and orange leaves. Little light up crows how the garden and a gorgeous throw down the sofa. All cheap. Mainly all plastic. I added them to a basket to click and buy - I too wanted the Halloween themed windows.

at which point I thought - WTF are you doing?! You don’t need of any of this you utter muppet. But I had nearly succumbed - felt a bit low, doom scrolling and the dopamine hit from shopping.

waiting I visited a lovely American friend’s family in the 90s. I was utterly astonished - coming from my relatively thrifty Scottish background - to see them use plastic forks and plates for ONE meal and throw them all away afterwards to avoid washing up. Such was my amazement - age 21 ish - that I did say “gosh but do you worry about the waste” and they laughed! So yes, I have seen it and even when plastics weren’t cared about like they are now, I was disgusted by it

Yes I agree…and don’t even get me started on the plastic tat that people give out in party bags. It’s so unnecessary. This is also one of the reasons that I dislike Xmas, the pressure to buy more tat for your kids that they don’t need/use. I don’t mention this to people in real life as I’ll be labelled as a fun sponge. But I believe that we can still enjoy things without buying tat.

I've just seen the first Xmas bargain thread on mn.
Sigh.
I've seen the US trend of using paper plates and forks. I mean, how lazy do you have to be?
My dh tells me that their US office workers leave their computers on 24/7 so they don't "waste" precious seconds turning them on in the mornings 😡
Madness.

It's very clever.
And some of the things I've seen advertised look very nice. But, as you say, we don't need them. No one "needs" a punpkin shaped oven dish.

I share your frustration. My mother is 85 with life limiting health conditions. She lives in a house full of stuff. When she goes, it’s all going in a skip bin. What I would want to keep will fit in a shoebox.

Yet, she keeps shopping on Temu and won’t let us throw anything out.

I can kind of see the logic of using disposable paper plates (not plastic) when you are having a party and a large number of people or similar. But for every day? Madness! I have seen a strict orthodox Jewish family on social media use plastic plates/cutlery when away from home in an Airbnb or similar because there is a process to make cutlery and crockery kosher.

I work with a lot of Americans from a lot of different states and the attitudes vary hugely. California as a state has banned single use plastics much in the way we have, recycling is a big thing, many have hybrid or electric cars. People I know in Utah are not "bad" people but it is just not a thing there, they all have plastic straws, the supermarket gives a plastic bag for each item, don't think about recycling much and all drive mammoth gas guzzling trucks.

How though do you get people to realise that they are being manipulated and played, and that what makes you happy or fulfilled is not window stickers or a new £3 top for going out?

My inlaws are the same. They have always equated success with piles of stuff and are very materialistic. Neither had much growing up in the 40s and 50s and they are very much of the attitude that you show you are doing better than the neighbours with a new car or piles of stuff. They would not be seen dead going into a charity shop, even to drop things off as someone might see them. They are not interested in buying quality or expensive, it's all about the quantity. MIL broke her hip last year, the hospital said she needed some proper supportive slippers for using around the house rather than the mules she was previously using. Rather than going to M&S, John Lewis, even Asda or Sainsburys, FIL was straight online to Temu and was delightedly telling us that for the £40 he would have spent in M&S he got FOUR PAIRS!

My mum is totally the opposite, she and my dad are from similar backgrounds, neither were from money but much more frugal. Very much a buy good, buy once ethos. Mum has so many things which have been in the house my whole life, and things like vases and pictures which were her mother's.

I think the main crux of it is that the inlaws see old things as being bad and inferior. Mum sees olkd things as being quality and desirable.

Couple of things.

In light of the Kondo method of decluttering and buying less stuff, this Japanese YouTube guy explains how ppl in Japan have less stuff but keep it for longer and clean as they go because they have to

And then there's this claim that plastic is in effect unable to be recycled and actually modern landfill can be grassed over. I think that really only would work in America though

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/just-bury-your-trash/

I don't think plastic in itself is bad. Lego and Playmobil for example is plastic but lasts for ever, holds its value and won't break.

Social media/personalised algorithms and directed advertising

It’s a consumer pushing wet dream come true!

Environmental nightmare.

I do get the decorating a bit, I don’t do it, but understand that society pressure on working parents who are also made to feel guilty for not #makingmemories - try to make the memories by buying relatively cheap decorations for the noticed days and hope that’s at least one thing they aren’t failing at.

Being sanctimonious about how you only decorate for autumn by collecting cookers doesn’t help. It feeds into the decorating for autumn being a thing and increases guilt on anyone who hasn’t got the time or can get to a conker tree etc. Even handmade crochet items a lot are made with acrylic wool. Which is petrochemicals and dye. Not great either.

Everyone will buy, make whatever what they want and try to lord it up over how their choices are superior in some way. All part of the same coin.

I agree it’s depressing, I think we should value qualities which are out of the consumer trap more than we do. It feels like we are all further away from that than I have known.

@AuntieBiotics, As I read your post I wondered if I had written it and forgotten- my ILs are just like yours, and my parents were very much like yours!

My MIL loves a bit of Temu and Shein 😫 She and FIL go on a lot of cruises (another environmental nightmare IMO), and she is always having to buy whole new outfits every time they go away. 🙄 The woman has a ridiculous amount of clothes, many she’s probably worn once. I dread helping to sort through their house once they’ve gone.

My inlaws are past the cruising days but they were huge fans in the 90s/00s and have umpteen outfits bought to wear on board which they refuse to sell or charity shop as they cost good money. They will not understand that nobody wants a lemon yellow embellished cocktail dress bought in 1993, even if it did cost £100 at the time.

I am conflicted on the cruise thing as I work on board one of the smaller cruise lines (c. 1000 passengers) as an "expert" and am off on my 4th cruise this year on Saturday. I don't think I'd like being on the massive 7000 people ships though.

I get the impression that the Temu app can be very addictive in the way it suggests deals with a countdown feature.

Of course it is
like online marketplace sellers with “back in stock” or last few remaining

creates a consumer panic if you don’t buy now you will miss out or pay more and feel a fool for waiting

It’s very clever and evil which is a dangerous combination