Most shops are just landfill waiting to happen.

[SummerDaytoNight]

I mean, all are to a point, but I’m talking about the non essential ones.

Our society is engineering its own collapse. We only need food, health, house basics and clothing. And I suppose, technology.

Fast fashion could go. Housing should just be the essentials.

My friend took me into a shop called sostrene grene. It was lovely, but nothing was essential. Most shops are like that.

The horse has bolted, but I wish we could limit the unnecessarily stuff and just have the basics. Im not talking Amish level, but there’s no need for all this waste. It would be so much better if only the essentials were produced.

At the point of production, it’s already basically landfill.

In my mid 60s, and I am reading this wondering who buys all this tat, because it certainly is not me! Now the kids are adults I don't even buy Easter eggs, or even chocolate come to that.
Is it so unusual to buy most stuff secondhand but buy quality?

Is it really, though (compared to the past, i mean)? I think part of the problem is how much stuff people think they "should" be able to afford on a particular salary. People then take that a step further by buying less good quality versions so they can have even more of it.

Why do people buy new Christmas decorations every year? I mean tree baubles and tinsel, then throw it away and buy new next year. It never used to be something people did, as far as I'm aware. They did like I do, hang things we've had for years, including ornaments DC made at nursery. It's half the fun decorating the tree and remembering days out/holidays when we bought things.
Nothing matches but who cares? As long as the lights work I'm happy.

I remember as a uni student when my house mate told me I needed to contribute £20 to buy plastic crap we weren't going to use twice for the Halloween party we were going to have in the house. Other than spending a stupid amount on absolute shite she was a right controlling cunt that didn't allow me to invite alot of my friends.
I luckily was able to decline after alot of hostility.
I think in many households, some but not enough people are thinking about landfill and the environment and won't buy it.

I’m with you, OP. B&M concerns me - it is just a vast store filled with pointless tat. And the fast fashion brands like Shein and Temu are extremely worrying. I don’t buy fast fashion or tat but am very aware that the majority of people do and I have no idea what the solution is. Season crap is particularly bad these days - you used to buy Christmas decorations and bring the same ones out every year, occasionally adding something new. Now people are changing their decorations all the time to new colour schemes or whatever. And then there’s valentines shit and Easter shit and Halloween shit - it’s never ending.

Why do you need an event? Why do you need anything?
Why not just sit in a cave with bread and water?

I keep my seasonal decs for many years though.

But I see OP's point. Even if things are used and reused and donated and reused, ultimately they're still destined for landfill. It's depressing. Or maybe it's burnt.

Why stainless steel over aluminium out of interest? X

i try my hardest to buy everything I can 2nd hand , we’ve just replaced out 30 year old carpets as they had holes in them. We hate waste . I do have some Halloween stuff from home bargains but I’ve had it for 17 years and bring it out every year .
i was speaking to a colleague about this recently and he said what’s the point it’s a piss in the ocean me trying to be green and mindful. I told hi. What a terrible attitude to have. It’s all the people at my work that vape especially the disposable ones , such a huge environmental issue

Aww I love Sostrene Grene.
I don't object to them-lovely things and ppl like having nice things in their homes.
I do try and use charity shops and save clothes and furnishing forever.

I agree there is too much social media posting about outfits bought for a day racing or whatever and I do think social media fuels the rampant consumerism.

I feel like there are many worse culprits Sostrene Grene.

The fast fashion and the Shein, Temu, tiktok shop etc are much worse!!!

I like to put a few decorations up , I have a floral door wreath for Easter and a pre lit wreath for Christmas , both years old .

I have cushion covers - Christmas/ some rather creepy Halloween ones (skulls and ravens not killer clown or zombie) and my favourite which have a picture of a hare for Easter.
Re-used every year , useful and I like the .
Also helps to mark the new season even though it reminds me time is passing and my Christmases and Easters are numbered

I'm still using the poundshop baubles I bought coming up to 20 years ago - the first and last xmas decorations I've ever bought! Some of the strings fell off so I replaced them with thread, and the top bits on a couple came off so I glued them back on. When I was growing up, most of the decorations were 25+ years old. It was like going back in time.

We’ve used Sostrene Grene for years! They sell excellently priced craft supplies for children, dolls house furniture and kitchen utensils. I have ceramic Christmas decorations from them that are 10+ years old, still in excellent condition and cost £0.97 each. The children’s toys are all wooden, I can’t think of a single thing they sell that is single use plastic!

You’d be better singling out Poundland, B&M or Home Bargins for disposable, single use items.

Agree With the OP.

But I don’t think it means we can’t have nice things. Buying less but better quality, and repairable items, is a sound strategy.

My grandparents and parents fridges, washing machines lasted for YEARS. This was only in the 60’s, 70s and 80’s.

In my last house the boiler was 35 years old. When a component broke the gas engineer said fix it, it’s great, you will only get 10 years from a new one.

If the government really gave a crap about Net Zero they would force companies to create products that last 15 years minimum.

This has now made me think net zero is more about encouraging us buying new things than the planet. My local garage said gear boxes are binned rather than fixed. This is stupid. If we are serious about the environment - the gov should fix this issue.

My last washing machine - Bosch - lasted 5 years. This time I bought the cheapest I could find (basic very limited tech) as I imagine it will be binned in 4-5 years.

Some concerns about ingesting aluminum from various sources (cooking pots, foil, deodorant - it is known to be found in neurofibrillary tangles in the brains of alzheimers patients and the incident at Camelford highlighted some issues with it's ingestion. Though I confess I haven't kept up with latest developments)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8150251/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelford_water_pollution_incident

We are utterly fucked. Hilariously, Trump's tariff policy might actually dampen the hyper production of shite no one needs. Imagine if he was the environmental hero no-one saw coming.

what i want to know is, if you are against tat and your dc has a birthday party
what are his friends meant to be buying him that meets your approval?

I will add to this - another problem is the capitalist need for year-on-year growth. If you sell "N" products for £X in year 1, to get growth you need to either sell N+P products or sell them for £(X + Y), or ideally both. But to sell mire products you need a wider audience, some of whom might not want to pay even £X. So you lower the quality a bit, not enough to put off last year's customers, but enough to attract this year's new customers. And on and on it goes until what was (say) a respected clothing retailer is now selling polyester tops and acrylic jumpers made in China, that look like rags within a year (which conveniently will make people buy more to replace the old ones), instead of organic cotton and merino wool made in the UK that will look great for years.

I mean, that's sort of my point. I don't find it remarkable (what a weird thing to assume), everyone is saying that B&M is full of cheap, plastic tat. I'm saying it has perfectly normal furniture and other things that are just as good as anywhere else, but often at cheaper prices.
If my coffee table was cheap tat, it wouldn't have lasted 9 years, hence my point.

The last washing machine I bought was not economic to repair because the bearings were a sealed unit that could only be purchased together with a new drum. The price of a new drum was almost as much as buying a new machine. It should be illegal for companies to manufacture and sell rubbish like this. It was a Bosch too, not a mega cheap brand.

You’re not wrong at all. Consumerism is absolutely out of control - seasonal items, fast fashion, so much plastic crap. I’m not going to pretend like I buy nothing and live a minimalist lifestyle but it is so depressing. Since having a baby I’ve been really trying to pass down clothes, books and toys so they don’t get wasted beyond their point of use.

Yes, I buy plants from B and M and we joke that 99% of Ghanzou provinces factories have an item on the shelves, so much of the items are just total crap....but still see pople with trolleys piled high with glitter cushions, plastic toys and other awful tat !

I hear you OP! At the start of 2024 I started a "no buy" year as far as possible. I bought no clothes apart from some knickers as some fell apart, but nothing else. I bought zero "tat", no ornaments, really cut back and just got food for cooking from scratch as far as possible. I saved a ton of money doing this and the house was a lot tidier too. It went so well I've continued with this in 2025. I don't try to convince people to do this, but it is highly recommended.

9 years ? Wow.

Meanwhile, antique auctions are heaving with furniture manufactured in the 1800s. Still in working order.