From the goat farm in the high desert, Marz reports she found a box of VHS tapes and DVDs dumped in the wilderness. Out there––off the grid, far from a paved road or any city services––there is no way to "throw things away".
Anything dumped will remain till Judgment Day.
Of course that's also true here in the city where I work at a thrift store. There is no "away", there is only "out of sight". Donating things to a thrift store may feel like a solution.
It's not.
I'm sorting toys at the thrift store now, as well as books (it fell to me when the toy volunteer quit). At least half the toys are plastic, and half of them are broken, filthy, unfixable.
What am I supposed to do with a cracked plastic truck that could pinch or slice flesh?
Or a plastic doll with magic marker all over its face?
It all goes in the Dumpster.
Here's the thing:
Once we've bought something,
it becomes our responsibility for life. It's like adopting a pet animal. If it––the
puppy, the clothing item, that great OXO lemon peeler––doesn't work out
for you, you can try to re-home it instead of throwing it out.
But what a pain, right? Who even does that?
Maybe with pets.
I follow a Rescue Dog group, and the time and money (and love) involved in finding new homes is immense.
Donating stuff to a thrift store is a stop-gap. Unless the donated things are in great shape and otherwise desirable (vintage, in fashion, worth money), they will immediately either be
1. put in the Dumpster, or
2. sold for pennies to be recycled downstream.
(The note gives me the sense that the coat's former owner thought someone might repair it--a sweet but naive expectation.)
It's handy if you label textiles you're donating that are too worn for further use. Clothes and other fabrics that come in labeled "for recycling" save the thrift-sorters work. Sorting thrift is dirty, dusty, heavy, and poorly paid work.
Recycling keeps textiles out of landfills for a little while longer... they get shredded for industrial use, mattress stuffing, rags--some even gets rewoven into fabric---among other things.*
But it's not an ultimate solution--it takes more fossil fuels to transport and process textiles, and there are more than are needed or wanted by anyone. And things can only be recycled so many times before they end up in the landfill.
There is no ultimate solution.
If you're not sure you want that new puppy, shirt, kitchen gadget, rubber ducky for its lifetime (which, with plastic, is forever)...
DON'T BUY IT.
________
P.S. Not buying things won't fix the fact that our economy is based on people making & buying stuff to be thrown away, of course, so that's another thing we can work on re-visioning...
We have a rag-finery shop here, put together by women who love fabrics and creativity. They have a fashion show every year of things made from Rag-finery donations, and it is amazing!!! Clothing or rags or fabric sold by the pound, separated into bins, Wool. silk, embroidery, etc.
ReplyDeleteAcrylics are not popular but are sometime useful. Polyester also not popular but are used in the costuming of the Parade of the Species every spring.
Plastic toys are quite another matter, some can be dismantled and repurposed but some are...landfill. You are right , there is no "away" and it is good to buy recyclables, natural products, We have done this since the sixties or at least been aware, especially with fabric. Waldorf toys have been preferred, made of wood, wool and paper, very little plastic, but plastic is the fact of our existence and until alternatives can prove to be cheap and better we are stuck with it.
Because China is no longer accepting our cast offs- our garbage collection has gone up 30% this month and will increase with time. We make very little garbage. It does not impact us but I think it is a good move - hit them in the pocketbook- hefty fines for dumping!
At the supermarket near me there are recycling bins for bottles, paper, fabric, but people just come along with a car load of assorted stuff and dump it on the ground. That, combined with the amount of rubbish that people dump everywhere, makes me despair. I suppose those people make themselves more visible than the people trying their best but it is depressing. I have picked things up from there and donated them to a charity shop-they were good things!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it does need a large amount of revisioning! Off to read the mild article now.
Here in Australia a lot of unsaleable thrift shop clothing gets cut into rags and sold by the bagful in hardware stores for cleaning rags. I have a bagful of rags in my back porch, some bought, some from my own worn out t-shirts. I use them for cleaning my paint brushes and colour mixing bowls.
ReplyDeleteMeg is very happy with the letter she received today and put the dress on right away! Thank you.
I remember hearing someone else years ago say that the answer to our solid waste problems is NOT recycling. The answer is consuming less in the first place -- just as you said.
ReplyDeleteI think people give things to thrift stores partly because they can't stand to face the waste they generate. I admit I give things that are sometimes borderline because I just can't throw them out myself. It's probably unfair to the thrift store but it relieves my conscience. At least the clothing goes on to some kind of second life, as you point out.
I know that I've written about this before but sometimes I am shocked by the definitely "trash" that is donated. Some places don't even trash it but will put it out under the idea of it must be okay to sell or we have to sell everything that is donated.
ReplyDeleteMy theory is that some of the donations are along the line of "poorer people will gladly take what I give" --the whole "I'm a good person because I donate to a charity." The donaters may not even realize that persons of all economic levels shop at charity/thrift stores.
Some of us just want clothing that will survive several washing and aren't cheaply made!
And to Steve--yes, not buying is the best!
Kirsten