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   Madeleine Morris (remittancegirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 22:07:07 JST Madeleine Morris

   Tempted to buy in the Black Friday sales?

   How long before it ends up in a landfill?

   Greenpeace Spain did an interesting study worth reading about.

   https://english.elpais.com/climate/2024-11-27/why-putting-used-clothes-in-a-recycling-bin-does-not-allow-you-to-have-a-clear-conscience.html#?prm=copy_link

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 22:07:02 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @Remittancegirl I don't understand the pleasure of buying new things. It means I'm getting something worse than what I had and having to get rid of better things to make space for it.

   • Embed this notice
     Madeleine Morris (remittancegirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 22:07:04 JST Madeleine Morris

     in reply to

     Historically, having to buy a new thing was often not a cause for pleasure, but horror. Because, for instance, a new piece of clothing was woundingly expensive. It had a marked financial impact on a household's budget.

     We celebrated as things got cheaper, because it allowed us to buy more stuff and suffer no real financial consequences. But that had a lot of knock on effects. We stopped fixing stuff, and we threw away more stuff, and the intrinsic value of the stuff plummeted. 3/ #eco

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     Madeleine Morris (remittancegirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 22:07:05 JST Madeleine Morris

     in reply to

     This also got me interested in sashiko - a mending/strengthening technique that has intrinsic aesthetic value.

     But there's an elephant in the room. One which I, and I suspect many people, are a bit embarrassed to admit - the pleasure hit one receives from buying a new thing.

     There is a lacanian psychoanalytic dimension to this, which I won't get into because it's a rabbit hole, but it has to do with the confluence of human desire and consumerism.

     2/ #eco

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     Madeleine Morris (remittancegirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 22:07:06 JST Madeleine Morris

     in reply to

     I've been thinking about this whole issue quite a bit. It really started when I realized my writer's block was not going away and I had to find other labour that gave me pleasure. After about 30 years, I took up sewing again. This time, I began making kimono, yukata and haori - garments that generate no waste material, and can be refitted and repaired many times. 1/ #eco

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     Pterry (pterry@fnordon.de)'s status on Friday, 29-Nov-2024 09:07:22 JST Pterry

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist

     @futurebird @Remittancegirl you know in the EU some people try to push the "right to repair" through parliament? And this is tied to repair cafes? This is real community building stuff. Upcycling has been a trend for some time now. And France has implemented a bonus if you let your stuff get repaired instead of throwing it away. Think about it: this benefits small local businesses and you lessen slave labour in other parts of the world.

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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Friday, 29-Nov-2024 09:07:23 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     @Remittancegirl

     I can fix SO MANY things!

     I think I may post about this on my building's chat, and maybe even make a sign.

     "I like to fix things! Hit me up before you toss it out!"

     In particular electronics.

     alcinnz repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Madeleine Morris (remittancegirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 29-Nov-2024 09:07:24 JST Madeleine Morris

     in reply to

     I also began to build a list of people who could fix things if I personally lacked the skills to fix it. That's no mean feat these days. It's hard to find people who fix things. And often fixing something will cost you more than buying a new one. So I just repeated that mental weighting from 'new' to 'renew' over and over.

     This renewed thing, I imagined, was more valuable and beautiful than a new thing, because it had been invested with human attention for longer.
     5/ #eco

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     Madeleine Morris (remittancegirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 29-Nov-2024 09:07:25 JST Madeleine Morris

     in reply to

     But most of all, the pleasure hit we got of buying that new thing was frustratingly fleeting.

     It is embarrassing to admit that I have bought a new piece of clothing, and the hit of pleasure has worn off by the time I get it home and cut the tag off it. Like... what the fucking fuck?

     Okay... so... I decided to try an experiment of shifting the mental value I put on 'new' to 'renewed'. And focus on my feelings of pride in the beauty of a mend. 4/ #eco