“You take care of things you found in the trash more than others take care of things they bought.”
A friend who visited broke a couple things of mine. They were fixable, but when he damaged one things by treating it cavalierly I said, “treat everything like it’s valuable.”
He was taken aback since I had told him I had found this thing—a laundry drying rack. Some neighbor was throwing it out. It worked so I kept and used it. On last Fridays of the month, if I walk around the neighborhood, I can find tons of perfectly good things people throw out when they move. When traveling, I’ve seen the pattern in many neighborhoods, rich and poor. The weekly disposal of perfectly good things pales in comparison to NYU dorms at the end of a semester, so presumably many universities, but that’s another topic.
I guess when he heard I had found it in the trash, he figured it was disposable. Partly I felt just because I found one once doesn’t mean if it breaks I can easily find another, but more I felt compassion for the people and wildlife hurt by waste, pollution, and depletion. Why create needless waste? In my view, the reason to avoid waste isn’t the cost to replace it but the suffering it causes others. We displace people from their land to take fuel and minerals from them.
He said, “You take care of things you find more than others take care of things they bought.” At the end of his visit, he said that attitude made an impression on him. I think he’s going to change his views and behavior on needlessly, pointlessly treating things cavalierly.
Here’s a year or two of trash I produce in my apartment. Why create more? It’s too much already.
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