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.

That's the way capitalism/COL etc is making life and everyone is complaining about it. Would you also think it's a bad idea to price your average person out of everything but the essential and let wealthier people keep the economy somewhat active or does it have to be EVERYONE? Because alot of people complain about not having enough money on their wage or money that they receive because other people have more when it would be good for the environment in a strange way if they were just completely priced out.

Re: flying tiger, I do quite like that shop. Amongst the tat, you can get decent stuff.
I got a few of the £2 glass tumblers. They have lovely designs on them and they are better quality than the IKEA ones which all broke eventually. The Tiger ones have lasted so far.

Some interesting-looking books on this topic:

• Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte:
• Garbage Land is a nonfiction book that follows trash from the bottom of a trash can, exploring the people and processes involved in waste management, from odor chemists to recycling gurus. It highlights the environmental and social impact of our consumption habits.
• Waste Wars by Alexander Clapp:
• Waste Wars examines the global politics of trash and how waste from affluent countries is often exported to poorer nations, creating environmental and social injustices.
• Wasteland by Oliver Franklin-Wallis:
• Wasteland provides a journey into the waste industry, exploring the secret world of trash management, from waste pickers in India to the after-life of our technology in Ghana.

Plastic plastic plastic plastic -we are going to drown in it.

Why don’t Govs force shops and supermarkets to find alternative containers for things -I can’t be the only one in the country who would accept some inconvenience if stuff was in cardboard, waxed or otherwise.
Then the cost of ‘recycling’ -yea right- who is paying for it?

This is why I mostly get my clothes from eBay now, after seeing the mountains of fast fashion clothes dumped in third world countries. Bottled water also makes me cross, our tap water is perfectly safe to drink. Why buy it in non reusable plastic bottles? Problems for future generations to sort out.

Shower gel was not a thing when I was a kid in the 80s. You'd just have bar soap.

They didn't use many liquids. Bars of soap, soap flakes, beeswax, borax etc and if it had to be liquid then you'd get it in glass bottles like vinegar. I worked as a cleaner for a while when I was younger and you honestly only need 1 or 2 products to clean your entire home.

Didn’t have showers! Bars of soap. Shampoo came in glass bottles

ChatGPT is terrible for the environment too

But that's fine. Your jeans are worn to the stage they can't be repaired. Your jumpers have been worn to death and need replaced. That is mindful consumption.

What would be mindless or ridiculous would be chucking out a pair of jeans you've had for a month because someone told you bootcut was in not skinny jeans, or because you'd gone off the colour of your jumper.

Oh lawdy I thought I was the only one who hated this tacky, wasteful stuff - thank you all for making me feel less of a miserable, humourless cow!

There is no reason we should use the Earth’s limited resources in pursuit of some pointless “celebration” when we probably neither understand nor believe the meaning behind it.

Scientist here: The "hardness" of the metal has nothing to do with whether it leaches into the water being boiled in it. How much of the pan ends up dissolving in the water is a function of the reactivity of the metal. Gold is a soft metal and you could boil water for a year without a single atom reacting with anything in the pan, because gold hardly reacts with anything, and certainly not any substances that you would find in an average kitchen.

Aluminium is slightly more likely than stainless steel to react with acidic components in food to form aluminium ions, which some people believe are related to dementia and/or Alzheimer's. However, there is no very good evidence for this at present, and there are plenty of other candidates to explain those conditions. For example, I recently saw a suggestion that the chickenpox virus can reactivate in later life, causing dementia instead of shingles.

There is just so much stuff everywhere

Hundred of toiletries, make up products, cleaning products. health supplements, clothes & then food, so much choice in supermarkets & constant newness.

Ah. Thanks for that.

I caused a bit of shock with one (adult) DC when they found out that I was using (a) bath gel in the shower, both to wash myself and my hair, and (b) general-purpose surface cleaner on the bath instead of "bath cleaner". Most of these products are chemically extremely similar.

I also don't think there is anything "wrong" with places like Home Bargains. I use the one near me for toothpaste, dishwasher tablets, hair serum, antihistamine tablets, some groceries. Basically the front half of the shop. The back half of the shop is the tat-fest section, at the moment it's full of cheap plastic garden ornaments and father's day shite along with easter shite, then it will eventually be filled with Halloween shite and Christmas shite. Stuff that people MUST buy, or they wouldn't sell it.

I think it's our approach to 'things' that's all wrong to be honest.

So many people want shiny & new all the time. It's a v particular aesthetic.

We have lots of stuff in our house but I'm v mindful of not replacing for the sake of it & in fact I became v sentimental about some things.

We bought a ruin & against the prevailing advice at the time that it it would be cheaper & we'd have a bigger house if we knocked it entirely & plonked a new build on the site. We were not interested in doing that.

We slowly restored the house using the more expensive traditional materials - lime render, proper slate, limestone sills etc . Our house is definitely smaller than many of our friends & colleagues who built new. But we love it & the fact that we've saved it from destruction or decaying totally.

Our furniture is a mix of bespoke to fit the dimensions of the house, antiques from grandparents houses on both side & some antiques we've bought + some new furniture.

We have only ever bought big furniture like sofas etc once since we moved in 20 years ago but we have reupholstered etc

We are still using v good pots & pans (Meyer & wedgewood) that we bought when we moved in & some were wedding presents! 99% of our utensils - ladles/ peeler / whisk etc also date from moving in..our dc is 20 now & somedays when I pick up a whisk or spatula I get a flash back to her little hand holding it as a child helping in the kitchen

When she was small we built up a collection of Halloween & Easter & Christmas decorations. And we still have them now. The Halloween & Easter were mainly from poundshops etc but we've minded them & stored them & they're still in perfect nick

We've continued to add to the Christmas decorations but only ever adding to what we have & never throwing anything out unless broken beyond repair. I have some of my grandmother's decorations & they are precious. I have some that dd made in preschool. We have an expensive fake tree that we've had 20 years. I can't bear to think of chopping down a tree every year. We will have this one probably for the rest of our lives

Dh has a relative & honestly she baffles me. She decorated her house top to bottom about every 2 years & i mean new everything- sofas, curtains etc & whatever colour scheme she has that year she matches her Christmas tree & baubles. Which seems to mean she buys all new decorations about every 2 years!! She follows all the trends- crushed silver velvet was a big one. She's in a grey & mustard phase at the moment & in the past few years there's been an icy turquoise and a hot pink phase..

I admit I do judge her wastefulness..and I'm morbidly fascinated by how she buys things only because they 'match' a colour scheme. So all her ornaments etc change too. Nothing seems to have any meaning or value. Its very next catalogue or ez living showroom feeling.

And sadly I don't think she's alone. I'd say she can't understand us holding into things so long.

<post messed up>

I wonder where people get the idea that they need all this stuff?

Can you help me understand how you see this working?

What are the consequences on nature, emissions, waste, pollution as you see them?

Because as I (and frankly all published science) see it, we literally cannot continue as we are.

Keen to hear your perspective on this.

So, if most products are unnecessary, then an awful lot of jobs will go, and an awful lot of tax will go with it.

So you want a future with really high unemployment and a government with even less money for things like the NHS and social care?

@NursieBernard It's very easy to be 'holier than though' but, how many of the people saying about plastic tat and the like don't own a car or don't fly abroad for a holiday? I do what I can but I certainly wouldn't want to preach about anything when I'm not perfect myself.

Exactly! I think middle-class lifestyles are some of the worst offenders, with big houses, big families (more than 2 kids), big cars (often Chelsea tractors), and multiple foreign holidays each year. But as long as they don't shop at B&M, it's OK!!

It's like I always say: Everybody wants to save the planet but nobody wants to give up having cars or children. 🤷‍♀️

I've never owned a car at age 50 and have never had kids, and I don't really like travelling, so I'm 😇. Haha! I do have a lot of possessions, but I keep them and use them forever.

This is probably going to shock some people, but I have over 100 Gotz and American Girl dolls. They're made of vinyl. About half were bought second-hand and half new. They also have a lot of clothes and accessories, some of which are new but many bought secondhand (or thirdhand, who knows) on Facebook Marketplace and eBay. The dolls are all in good condition and very much in-demand over here in the US. I aim to keep them for many years and then, when I'm old and doing Swedish death cleaning, donate them to a toy library.

I suppose eventually they will end up in landfill, but not until they've given decades of enjoyment. I can't work out if a collection like this is good or bad. Good, because they're being used (and remember half are secondhand already), but ultimately all this stuff ends up in landfill even if it takes decades to get there. In my defence, some of the dolls were already twenty years old by the time they came to me! (I know which dolls were made in which years.)

Or maybe it doesn't end up in landfill. Maybe it gets recycled. I should read those books I linked above.

I mean, just to take a doll as an example - but you could extrapolate this to anything - the doll exists, and whether I take care of it or someone else does is immaterial really. If you imagine its journey, it goes from factory to store to someone's house, stays for a while, and is then either sold, donated, or thrown away. These days, I think it has a much better chance of being passed on than thrown away, thanks to the circular economy. Some doll collectors buy really beaten-up dolls cheaply, restore them, and then sell them. They are given new life, haha!

It's true that we have lots of plastic tat from places like Temu, but it's also true that people restore, donate, and re-sell more than ever before.

The seasonal stuff is the worst. Going into the range or Poundland or wherever and the mountains of tat for Easter/valentines/halloween/Christmas is out of control

Literally nobody is saying you have to. You know very well that we're talking about those who throw it all away and buy new tat every year.

I mean, that's a bit negative and judgemental. You don't know that the people buying that stuff don't need it. Maybe their dress or shoes are wearing out and they need new. Maybe they don't have very much and this is a special purchase. 🤷‍♀️ It's slightly odd to assume that everyone who buys things is being irresponsible with no eye to consumerism or careful spending, because you really don't know.