I was just thinking about something similar the other day. I never really considered clothing items to be “disposable” but on a recent trip to the grocery store I discovered that the have packages of men’s socks with 10 pairs for $8.00.
I realized that I spend more than that every day just on my morning coffee and it’s one less load of laundry I have to do. I kind of makes me feel guilty but for the last few months I’ve been putting on a brand spanking new pair of socks each morning and tossing them out in the evening. The only real drawback is that my wife thinks I’ve gone completely nuts.
Definitely pens – for the longest time I assumed that if the pen could be disassembled, it was also refillable. That doesn’t seem to be a common practice though.
Home electronics – it’s cheaper now to just replace a TV or other entertainment center component than it is to try and have it repaired. I consider computers to be somewhat in this category as well; my last tower computer purchase (complete with a new monitor) was much cheaper than the lowest estimated cost of fixing and upgrading my old computer (the warranty had expired).
Printer ink cartridges. I am the most environmentally aware person you will ever meet. I don’t like throwing things away. But refilling printer ink cartridges is a good idea in theory that never works in real life.
A bit off topic, but: food scraps. If the reason you put in the fridge is because you don’t like to finish it, (and not because you’re full) what makes you think you will want to eat it later?
Some people thinks you can’t dispose of food. I feel disposing of food isn’t wasteful; buying too much, cooking too much and letting the remainders go rotten before you throw them out, however, truly is wasteful. I tell my Mom that everytime she gives me the “I can’t bring myself to throw away food because I went hungy in the the Second World war”-schtick.
Because I don’t throw anything away ever. I don’t replace anything until I am absolutely, completely forced to do it. For example, I have one pair of shoes. That’s it. That’s all I own. And they’re over a year old now, and I have utterly worn them out, and I know I need to go buy more this afternoon and I feel genuinely guilty about the expense. Now, I know shoes need to be replaced, and I have issues doing it. Imagine all the things in my life that I don’t view as replaceable at all. Most of the items mentioned in on this thread never even occurred to me. Pillows? Pans? Now I wonder what else in my home can be easily replaced (and should be replaced).
Meh…I’m like that too and this thread has blown me away. I still can’t get over the sock thing. Just the amount of energy that it takes to produce the socks and fly them over from China to wear them once and them to throw them out?
Wooden spoons.
Similarly cheap and available at all Walmart/Target type stores. Regular grocery stores too.
Towels.
Why did we always fight as kids over finding a dry towel, and why were most of our towels the size of a postage stamp?
You can go to the outlet mall (forgot the name of the store) and get bath sheets that are plenty big for a full sized man for something like $8 each. buy a couple new ones every year and use the old ones to wash and dry the car, clean up spills etc.
Go to your grocery store (or dollar store if you are lucky) and get a good sized metal roasting pan to use as a litter box. You will never have to replace it.
Yeah, me too…I’m having trouble with a few of these things. But I have a couple of my own!
Soap slivers…if it gets too tiny and starts breaking in half while I’m trying to use it, into the trash it goes. I have a friend who saves them all up and makes a new bar of soap, but that’s just too much trouble for me.
I’m with Maastricht on the leftovers. My husband will save any tiny little bit of anything that’s leftover and it ends up sitting in the refrigerator for a week. Unless it’s enough to make a meal, it’s in the trash.
My really wasteful one is notebooks. I’m a listmaker and I always have a small notebook in which I write to-do lists, grocery lists, books to read, etc. I’m really picky about my notebook, though, and it annoys me if my husband or the kids wrinkle the pages or write in it. When that happens, I just get a new one and start over. I usually don’t actually throw it away, unless I’m getting near the end anyway, but I don’t personally use it anymore. I’ve even done this with nice leatherbound notebooks when my husband has chosen to write some random phone number right in the middle. Yeah, I know I’m ridiculous.
When my wife’s grandmother passed away, she was helping to go through the house and sort out her belongings. In one drawer was a plastic bag filled with tiny pieces of string, and neatly labeled, “String – too short to use.”
Am I the only one here who is suddenly itching to go buy new socks and a bath rug? Seriously – my wife is constantly on me about buying new dress socks. I live off of the three pair I have. I feel bad because I wear holes in them quickly, but for some reason, I don’t see this as justification for buying new socks. :smack:
And the bath rug…good Lord. The thing is years-old and has been laundered so much that the rubber lining has all but disintegrated. And I see now on Bed, Bath & Beyond’s website (and there’s a store less than a mile from our house) that there are plenty of nice rugs that can be had for $25 or less.
There’s a third possibility. My folks always started a new bar of soap and, while it was wet, pressed the sliver from the last bar into its side. They would dry stuck together and after a couple of usings would be welded into one mass.
I have daughters-in-law who keep me supplied with pump bottle soap, or I’d still be doing it.
I’ve learned to stock up on things that I can never find when I need them. I’ll get packs of cheap scissors, adhesive tape, reading glasses, etc. and salt them through the house. I have brushes in several locations, including in the car.
As an aside, we moved when the kids were in high school. In the process of packing and clearing we ended up with hoardes of pens, pencils, combs, brushes, clothes hangers, and extension cords. I had kept buying new ones as the old ones were ‘lost’. Since we moved to a smaller place, we had what seemed to be a lifetime supply of these. Still have all the extension cords I need.
My mom does this with cleaning supplies. She has entire sets of cleaning supplies (sponges, brushes, cleaners) in all of the bathrooms, kitchen, laundry, etc., so that she doesn’t have to carry stuff all around the house while she’s cleaning. They all get used up eventually, so it’s a little different than the OP’s proposal, but it was definitely one of those situations where forking out a couple more dollars made life just a little easier.
I do that with cleaning supplies too. Each of my bathrooms has its own set of scrub-stuff. Since the kids clean their own bathrooms, it cuts down on a lot of, “where’s the scubbing bubbles?”
It was incredibly freeing for me to realize I did not have to save that little sliver of soap. My parents also welded the little piece onto the big new one; sometimes it stuck, other times it squirted around the shower or tub like it had life of its own. Now, I TOSS IT. Whee! Brand new soap without the annoying maintenence of keeping up with .001 cents worth of soap stuck to it.
I used to save yogurt containers (the larger sized ones) for leftovers, but you do have the annoying problem of 47 identical containers in the refrigerator, some of which actually contain yogurt. After an intervention by my husband, I am now able to throw these containers into the recycle bin, and put my judiciously selected leftovers into Rubbermaid or Glad disposable containers. I also started throwing out the little dabs of food nobody ate anyway – a very freeing experience as well.
I think so too. Throw out perfectly good socks? If they have holes okay, but why not wash them? Especially as I prefer to wash my clothes before wearing anyway.
Actually any throwing out of perfectly good clothing that can easily be washed. Like onsies? I washed them. The stained ones got tossed when he outgrew them, but not before (I was doing lots of laundry anyway).
