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?
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