Our Disposable Society

I think it all started with the Bic pens .... buy something cheap and just throw it away when you are done. The next thing you knew, it was cheaper to throw away your VCR and buy a new one. It seemed crazy, but it was cheaper (plus you got all the new features with your newer, cheaper model).

It is still my tendency to repair verses buy.

Last month, it was the beater bar on the vacuum. The vacuum worked fine. The beater bar was toast. I bought a beater bar.

This month, I found a perfectly good purse while I was housecleaning. All it needed was a new pull-tab for the zipper. I had it repaired.

A few days ago, the dryer was making a loud, grinding noise. This is a dryer that came with our house and we've lived here over 14 years. They don't make motors for this dryer any more. It's a good dryer. So I phoned my friendly appliance repair shop and one quick house call later, the dryer was up and running again.

After this last repair, I was kind of proud of myself. A lot of people would have just run out and bought something new. I felt that I had made a wise economic choice by fixing what I already had. So I tallied up my savings:

New beater bar - $219.00      verses     New vacuum cleaner - $329 99
Fix zipper tab -    $    6.60      verses      New purse (approx)  -  $  20.00
Repair dryer -      $147.30      verses     New dryer -                      $328.90
                                   $372.99                                                                      $678.89

And what do I have? An vacuum cleaner that may die of another 'death' at any time, a dryer running on borrowed time (my 'new' motor is someone else's used one) and ... a purse that I like.

I spent more than I saved. I was disgusted.

My belongings aren't sitting in a garbage dump. They are still living a vital and productive life in my home.

It was at this point that I thought there should be a tax credit for 'repairs'. I'm saving the planet (a little bit). I'm not saving a great deal of money. In fact, I could be spending a lot more money than I should have, since my old stuff doesn't come with a warranty. There should be some kind of incentive in place to encourage people to extend the life of their belongings.

Disposable pens, disposable razors, disposable VCR's ... What is our world coming to??

The sense of permanence is fading. The land fills are overflowing. People are overspending (the prices I quoted for new items are the bottom line prices. Chances are, that you would walk into a store and pay hundreds more than that after doing some comparison shopping). Don't even get me started on the disposable nature of relationships these days ........

What happened to the sense of  'forever'? Is that just a fairy tale ending now-a-days?