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.

Can you imagine how much more interesting and exciting the world would become. Instead of every town and city being a carbon copy of each other selling the same unnecessary landfill.

I don’t see the issue with seasonal ornaments when they’re reused time and time again. It’s the pointless crap I dislike - MiniBrands (basically tiny plastic versions of everyday branded foods and skincare etc) and those stupid dumplings where you try to find the ‘rare’ glitter plastic dumpling by buying them blind. I’ve seen people buy 10 to try and find the ‘rare’ one so they’re left with 9 pink ones they don’t want…

total waste of money and horrifying consumerism

Agree. Agree. Agree.

Our Morrisons has plastic bag recycling, some Tescos as well.

I believe there is some evidence that nature is adapting to microplastics, they are reconfigured hydrocarbons that have originally come from biological sources, microbial and detritivore life cycles are generally short so evolution proceeds, whether it can keep pace with the exponential efforts of mankind is the question.

If anyone remembers the film Nomadland (about Amazon seasonal workers in America) there's a bit in the book it is based on that touches on this.

Basically huge amounts of single/never use plastic crap being manufactured to be sold on Amazon to people with prime who are doomscrolling at 2am. They don't really want the stuff and most of it goes straight in the bin when it arrives because it's cheap junk. But it's being manufactured to scratch that itch.

The Patrick Grant book about the clothing industry makes the same point. He talks about the range of men's clothing he did for Debenhams. Did really well. It was wardrobe staples - white shirt, chinos, winter coat etc. He wanted to keep it going based on those designs so people could come back and buy an identical shirt when the one they had wore out. Debenhams said no. The entire range had to be redone from scratch every season, so the white shirt was slightly different etc. All the patterns, the cutting dies, the buttons etc had to be redone and the previous ones, which could have been used again, were binned. All the leftover stock was binned rather than going back on sale. It was utterly gross.

All we can do as individuals is resist. Don't buy tat we don't need. Make do and mend with out clothes. And find a hobby that isn't shopping. It's become entertainment and it isn't.

The "blind" bags and capsules are just tat. LOL dolls was the start of this. Before then, there was hardly any of this excess plastic crap.

I used to love doing Hallowe' en decorations that I made myself from random stuff (that was part of the challenge and kept the DC occupied during the school holidays)

Shopping is not something I enjoy unless I need something and I rarely do impulse buying.

Going through our local large Primark store thres rails of clothes " oh look this dress is only £8 " .....yes but the material is shite and it'll look like a rag after one wash . So your cost per wear is quite high .
Some even look shite while they're on the hanger so before they've even left the shop

I love anything Christmas but I find the greed for Beauty Advent Calenders quite repulsive ."I'm buying the xyz one and the ABCD one" some of those contents are a standalone gift not a filler .
I used to make an advent calendar for DD so I knew exactly what was in it , everything she'd use , no tat.

Sadly no fresh flowers , the cats would knock them over

I will also say, when you have decluttered the home of your dead parents you do question whether you want to inflict that trauma on your own children.

@SummerDaytoNight Well, you're right. I cringe at the number of people on this site with 6 figure salaries who splurge their monthly payslip on huge ugly cars, frequently eating out at restaurants, more than 1 holiday a year, frequent clothes shopping, private tuition, unused subscriptions, unnecessary second homes, etc... then they pretend to be confused whenever they don't have money left over for anything else.

I'm just sitting down after a morning's gardening and thinking about this. OK, I could go to the garden centre and buy loads of new stuff. However:

My trowel is at least 70 years old (older than me).

My hand fork is probably about 40 years old.

My secateurs are unknown, I got them from a garden swap event about 35 years ago.

Our patio table and chairs are 24 years old. They are wooden and DH treats them with oil each year.

Most of my plants are swaps, cuttings or grown from seed.

I have no ornaments, I can't abide them cluttering up the garden.

We make most of our own compost, and we share a lawnmower with two other families.

I wouldn’t exactly say most but certainly agree with you that it is loads…

I think that’s why I get so so angry about government initiatives around banning wet wipes and plastic stalked earbuds .. things that - yes, mostly women - use to make the messy business of personal care for babies and/or the elderly, disabled just that little bit easier and less gruelling… and yet all this tat, this utter shite, is ignored.

My son once dressed as Charlie Bucket for world book day. He hated dressing up anyway, so he went in jeans and t shirt, had a Specsavers 'golden ticket' and lots of chocolate bar wrappers attached to the t shirt! Never considered buying a specific outfit.

One thing that's changed for the worse over the years is that people don't wait for birthdays and Christmas to get what they want, if they want it, they have it there and then, and presumably get more 'stuff' for birthdays and Christmas. Also, the idea of shopping as a pastime in itself. I love looking round shops occasionally but really have to be strict about not buying stuff I don't need.

Looking back at my childhood in 70s and 80s, I remember shops not being open.on Sundays and of course there was no such thing as online shopping. I suppose it harks back to a less secular society where people went to church on Sundays. Things have changed so much with everything being available 24/7 (and I hate deliveroo and the like, it is so bad for the environment, people on mopeds driving to deliver one meal).
Also, streaming services. But I do have Netflix so mustn't be hypocritical about that!

No, of course not, that's taking things to the extreme!

I have a few curated ornaments and bits and pieces on every surface. But I stick with one look. Some of my ornaments are 30+ years old and I'll never replace them.

I love decorating for Christmas, but will be using the same tree ornaments - which I buy one new item of each year - for the rest of my life.

The trouble with threads like this, is that they’re demonstrative of a lack of understanding about the poverty tax.

If you are poor, you cannot afford to buy a £500 pair of shoes, that you will buy once, and buy well. You probably cannot afford to save up for a £100 pair of shoes. Instead you will buy £40 shoes- because shoes are an item that you need urgently, and you can’t wait the X months to save up for the £100 shoes, or the X years for the £500 shoes. And they will wear out in a years time and you will buy them again and again all your life- and here’s where it becomes a poverty tax- you will spend way fucking more than your rich pal with their £500 shoes will.

Similarly- if you are poor, you will not be able to justify to yourself spending £10 on glass food storage that will last forever, even if you happen to have the cash- as opposed to the £1 plastic food storage in B&M- that probably has a cutesy little emoji face on it or something. You probably wont be able to EVEN IF someone were to sit you down and explain to you the environmental impact, the long term savings, the fact that you may save more money in saved food in the long term etc. why? Because you are in survival mode. Survival is immediate. You cannot look ahead to 20 years down the line. You probably can’t imagine next week.

you can apply this to mattresses, toys, shoes, coats, sofas, whatever you want.

So many people on MN can’t fathom just how great a % of this country are now in “survival mode”. And what that does to your “choices” such as they are. And why, frankly, you don’t give a flying fuck about the planet, when your immediate existence is so fraught.

I have done this . My mum ( still alive) always had hoarder tendencies so trying to get through a sea of STUFF! ( not tat but things that had no use that she wouldn't part with)
My adult DS has a similar trait and I am really good at keeping a close eye on things.

He has a decent black coat that still fits him and he wears regularly . That is good .
He had 7 shirts that no longer fitted him. I bought him new and washed/recycled the others,
If I try to recycle things he says " but I wear that " and I say "that has not been through the wash in months and its too small so no you don't wear it young man"
He'd drown in tat if he could - but he doesn't buy new things so I suppose that's a saving grace ?

https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/circular-economy-introduction/overview

Shein clothing is an arm of the Ali(Baba, Express) company of China. Cut out the middle man and buy from AliExpress, it's the same clothes but cheaper.

I have some gorgeous plates and cutlery. I don’t need anymore. I won’t buy anymore unless they break. I won’t replace the whole set to make the new ones match either. How many plates and bowls does the planet need to produce?

And all of this is reinforced by the capitalist system that wants to keep the poor, poor, spending what little they have on disposable shit rather than building generational wealth (which has been pushed out of reach of most of us now anyway, if we were unlucky enough to miss our chance to get on the property ladder), and having the time and space and freedom to think about about how truly fucked they’ve been by the B&M / Temu/ Sostrene Green owning elite.

This is just not true when charity shops and Facebook marketplace exist. I agree to some extent with eg shoes but there are loads of things for which is does not hold and it’s just trotted out as an excuse. Having worked in advice services I guarantee you there are plenty of low income families who would not be seen dead in second hand or unfashionable clothes, using antiquated gardening tools or using any home decor stuff that is even slightly dated looking or worn. Don’t shoot the messenger!

I do understand that @TiredEyesToday as the vast majority of people are in that situation.

Our lives would not be affected one bit if there were only 5 identical plastic tat items to choose from rather than 5000. It's the sheer scale of it.

I think you've missed the point of the OP, which isn't arguing against the fact that "sometimes we need to buy cheap, poor-quality items that serve a purpose".

I think you should be free to buy as much tat as your heart desires but you have to keep it in your own house forever.

I can tell you babe. I grew up in abject poverty and it 100% is true.

Couldn’t agree more OP. May as well lift the container ships full of plastic shite from China and dump them straight into a hole in the ground. It’s upsetting once you start seeing it all around you.

Søstrene Grene sell lots of essential items. Kitchenware and food and small items of furniture for example - and it's affordable prices.

They have plenty of non-essential decorative and craft items too, I don't dispute that. But unless you think nobody needs bowls and cutlery and chairs and cups, then I'm not sure why you think it's all non-essentials. Unless your argument is that you don't need any, so they are no longer essential? Or that people that do need these things should go to a charity shop?