Dump Vs. Charity/Reuse

This morning while Dad and I were out changing my headlight (which thankfully on newer cars you only have to change the bulb rather than the entire lightbox!), I watched our neighbor from across the street begin to load the back of his F350 truck with a bunch of stuff from the side of his house. Included in the load were items such as: plastic children's toys (kitchens and such), a non-broken full length mirror, pieces of usable lumber, a folding chair, etc. Amongst that he did have "junk": odds and ends of scraps, etc (although even junk can be reused). Usually I would have bitten my tongue and just spent the day with negative thoughts ruminating in my brain about how much people waste. However I developed the courage to ask him, "Are you taking all of that to the dump?". His response was to the affirmative, which therefore promoted me to ask, "Why don't you take it to Goodwill instead?". And of course his response was that it was ALL junk! Sigh.

Now I had several options at this point. One of which could have included me going into a tirade and trying to pursade him into believing that he was contributing to a very negative problem of our society. However this is a gentleman who at one time had a "Sierra Club Sucks" sticker on the back of his truck window and I did not believe that anything I tried to say would sway him anyway. The point is that it still disheartens me to again see how often in our society we are a "one time use" society. We buy something and when we are done with it or a piece breaks, we throw the whole thing away. I understand at the same time that so many of our electronics and other items are difficult to fix or just as expensive to fix one part than to buy a new item. A perfect example of this occured within my own family within the last few days.

My brother called my father about two days ago and reported that his fridge was on the fritz. Dad was going to drive up to Salem to help him with replacing the fridge, but a wonderful thing happened. My sister-in-law was discussing the issue with someone at her work and a gentleman who works there was able to help them load the fridge and take it to a repair/recycle shop. The shop then told my brother that for only $30 they would take a look at the fridge and diagnose the problem before disposing of it. However they thought it might take a few days. So my brother and his wife headed for the beach house to spend an evening away and to get an extra mini-fridge we have in storage there, so they could keep some goods cold before possibly having a new or fixed fridge. On their way to the coast, they received a call. The original fridge was fixed and ready for pick up, and the cost of the repair was $54. How fabulous that instead of immediately buying a new item, this gentleman from my sister-in-law's work was able instead to help them with having it fixed! A huge financial savings for them AND a huge savings for the environment!

There is a current advertisement on the TV that just irks me and it relates to this concept of use and discard. I can't remember who the commercial is by (maybe Home Depot or something) but it shows a woman humorously demonstrating to her husband that they "need" a new fridge. However their "need" is all because she wants a water dispenser in the door of the fridge and not because the fridge actually needs to be replaced. Just another example of how current marketing practices encourage the habitat of buying for our wants, not because of our needs AND of our disposing of goods that still have use instead of really using an item for its entire lifetime before discarding it.

I hope that at some point with all of our high-tech knowledge, we can develop a manner in which to recycle all components of our items (including stoves, fridges, clocks, etc). One would think that we should be able to re-use or recycle about 75% or more of all of these items, even to produce new items for consumption. If we could take old items (which have no more use) and turn them into new items, the landfills would greatly benefit and I suppose even marketing would benefit as well. The improvement needs to come from consumer awareness and from consumers pushing for increased changes within the consumption, reduction, and recycling realms. My fear though, and one that I see every day through my interactions with the majority of my community members where I currently live, is that many individuals just do not care. As someone who overly cares, I just cannot fathom how people cannot care about the future of the environment, the future of their children, and even the potential health impacts that many of our products and gadgets have upon ourselves. Is it possible to change people into caring individuals? That I suppose is my question of the day.

May you each have a fabulous day and enjoyment of your weekend!