One of the best things we can all do, both for the environment as well as for the "story of stuff" is to repair, reuse, repurpose "stuff"...not re-buy/replace.
It's not a new idea, and has been the thing that people fall back on time and time again when money was tight. During the Great Depression (something both of my parents lived through), such thriftiness was commonplace. You never tossed anything out that you could reuse. Reuse and scavenging things for recycling later was how everybody made ends meet.
I recall the fact that when I moved my folks recently, I came across several old tin cans in the garage, full of nails, screws, and bolts that had been recovered, "cleaned up" a bit, and saved...for one day it might be needed and rather than spending money, this one would work. I recall as a small child, my dad would pull nails out of wood, both to protect us kids from falling on them, as well as to hammer out straight and to save for reuse. The wood would be saved in a great pile in the garage for reuse also (typically sliding it under the car, between the tires, so as to make the most of that space too).
Today however, such thrift is almost a lost art. How to save things, as well as knowing what is worth saving, is a hard thing to discover...not to mention a far more complicated decision these days. Is the old out of alignment VCR worth keeping, knowing that to get it formally repaired (if you can even find someone willing to do it) will cost more than just replacing it with something new, worth it? Is the five to seven year old car that you've already paid off worth keeping, now that the A/C has given out?
There's also the modern day issue of what to do with those things you save. Nobody wants, plans, or chooses to end up on some TV show about hording. Few people want to actually own storage facilities for just keeping track of all the spare bolts, VCR's, etc. that they've salvaged. It costs more and more money to do so...paying for the building, insurance, heating and cooling of such storage facilities alone can run to many thousands of dollars.
So what are we to do? I have a proposal that I'd like to offer up as a possible solution. Let's resurrect another Dust Bowl/Great Depression sort of behavior.
SHARING.
Those that have such modest "spares" lying about share them with others who don't. In more affluent areas, older buildings that would otherwise be abandoned might be re purposed to be neighborhood tool libraries/parts warehouses/fix-it-up shops. Neighbors could bring things in that they no longer wanted, put a post-it on said item saying whether or not it worked, what was wrong with it, etc. and abandon it in place (but not in the land fill). Then others could come in and tinker with it (using the tools in the library). If they get it to work again, they can change/amend the post-it saying so...and either abandon it in place, take it home themselves, return it to the original owner, etc.
It is almost like a "makers space" type of shop, but more of a "fix-it space". Many of the same concepts could be leveraged...and many makers space places could be a fix-it space also. It just makes sense.
People helping people, sharing their time and talent for the betterment of the group. That kinda defines what it is to be a good neighbor. It's what most Christians are called to do. It builds bonds between people. It tends to give kids a "leg up" in the realm of understanding the mechanical world around them. It saves the planet an extra bit or twelve of trash in the dump.
What's not to like?
20100930
20100928
Living Smaller
For many years now, I've been looking at living smaller, both in the amount of stuff that I have to keep up with, as well as the size of the "box" that I put it all in. Sadly, right now, this is very hard for me to actually do, as I have a family of six that I'm helping house. But in the general stream of "eventual lefts" I'd like to take, downsizing my life is one of those big things that makes considerable sense to me.
In most of the areas of my life, this is not really a huge challenge. But there are two specific areas that it will be a massive challenge for me, namely tools and books.
Tools are difficult because with them, you can do so many "other" things...like build small houses (see "Little House on a Small Planet", "The Small House Book" and others). You can be crafty (see "Maker Spaces", "Instructables", etc.), you can help out friends when their stuff breaks, etc. Also being the son of a former hardware/housewares store owner, I both know good tools when I see them AND had easy access to getting them. Further, as a new slum-lord of sorts, I've increased the collection of "construction tools" quite a bit of late, trying to fix up the rental property I have.
Books are the other seriously hard thing for me to prune down. When I recently moved, I had a moving company come in and give me a quote on boxing up everything and moving it. They counted 17 full-height (72" high or better) book cases and quoted me almost $4000 just to box up 11,000 pounds of books. And this was about five years ago. To say the least, as I read and collect books rather voraciously, and time marches on, my collection has grown.
Both of these areas are things I'm neither ashamed of, nor that I can bring myself to see as evil. However, when trying to make them jibe with the whole "live smaller" theme, it is quite the contradiction to have to resolve. It will be hard to do, as both my collection of books and tools has grown since my last move.
When the time comes, I think the best I'll be able to do is to trim things down to a smallish kit of things that make sense to me as "maintenance" things...both books and tools...and then to give the rest of it away. The books to a local library (hoping they'll keep them in their collection...not just dump them into the "Friends of the Library" used book sale) and the tools to either seed a local or extend a near by Maker Space.
In most of the areas of my life, this is not really a huge challenge. But there are two specific areas that it will be a massive challenge for me, namely tools and books.
Tools are difficult because with them, you can do so many "other" things...like build small houses (see "Little House on a Small Planet", "The Small House Book" and others). You can be crafty (see "Maker Spaces", "Instructables", etc.), you can help out friends when their stuff breaks, etc. Also being the son of a former hardware/housewares store owner, I both know good tools when I see them AND had easy access to getting them. Further, as a new slum-lord of sorts, I've increased the collection of "construction tools" quite a bit of late, trying to fix up the rental property I have.
Books are the other seriously hard thing for me to prune down. When I recently moved, I had a moving company come in and give me a quote on boxing up everything and moving it. They counted 17 full-height (72" high or better) book cases and quoted me almost $4000 just to box up 11,000 pounds of books. And this was about five years ago. To say the least, as I read and collect books rather voraciously, and time marches on, my collection has grown.
Both of these areas are things I'm neither ashamed of, nor that I can bring myself to see as evil. However, when trying to make them jibe with the whole "live smaller" theme, it is quite the contradiction to have to resolve. It will be hard to do, as both my collection of books and tools has grown since my last move.
When the time comes, I think the best I'll be able to do is to trim things down to a smallish kit of things that make sense to me as "maintenance" things...both books and tools...and then to give the rest of it away. The books to a local library (hoping they'll keep them in their collection...not just dump them into the "Friends of the Library" used book sale) and the tools to either seed a local or extend a near by Maker Space.
20100927
Hello, it's "Just Roland"
Having been bit by the blogging bug, I thought I'd give this a go. I've been looking for an outlet for several competing ambitions of late. Namely, they are loosely around the following goal areas:
To achieve all of this is a bit beyond my immediate goals, but I believe it is still something to work towards. As such, there are a number of different projects/tasks that I've undertaken of late to see just where I am in life, versus the goals listed above. Some of the more interesting ones have come to me via other web/blog posts on some of the following web sites:
During the course of my initial "brain dump" on these topics, I intend on covering each of the various areas listed above, along with the why and how I see them as related. Please bear with me and see where this goes.
- Organizing one's life into
- The needed
- The wanted
- The silly
- Downsizing to be somewhere between the needed and wanted
- Not abusing the planet (general environmentalism)
- Redefining/rediscovering "fun"
To achieve all of this is a bit beyond my immediate goals, but I believe it is still something to work towards. As such, there are a number of different projects/tasks that I've undertaken of late to see just where I am in life, versus the goals listed above. Some of the more interesting ones have come to me via other web/blog posts on some of the following web sites:
During the course of my initial "brain dump" on these topics, I intend on covering each of the various areas listed above, along with the why and how I see them as related. Please bear with me and see where this goes.
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