Living In A Disposable Society – An Addiction To Junk

We live in a world where mass production of everyday household goods is leaving our earth piled high with broken junk. Products are losing out in quality so that they are cheaply available. This is creating a disposable society, a world full of unwanted items.

Once upon a long time ago, families bought household essentials with a view to keeping them for a lifetime. Even as an heirloom to pass down to future family members. Things were produced carefully and with quality in mind. In other words, they were built to last. Minimalistic lifestyles were the norm.

Today, in order for conglomerates to enrich themselves, use by dates on many of our day to day products are deliberately enforced to force us to buy the same thing again and again. It’s a paradox. A contradiction. On one hand we worry about pollution and a growing concern about our future earth, yet we fill up our homes with more gadgets, (some absolutely useless), than we will ever need. We buy cheap tools, kitchen gadgets, personal items that have a very short life span. This is due to poor quality materials being used in manufacture. Industry has learned that people are more likely to buy a two dollar, poorly made screwdriver, rather than a ten dollar Sidchrome screwdriver that will last for decades.

Take a moment and pull open a kitchen drawer. How many can openers do you own? How many vegetable peelers? Tongs? Need I say more? We are all guilty of this affliction. We are enticed into buying products we think we need, use them once or twice, then they squat in the bottom of a drawer for who knows how long.

Do you want our children and grandchildren to inherit a better planet? Then don’t fill it with junk. Next time you shop online or visit a mall, think carefully. Buy well. Ask yourself:

• Do I really need it?

• Is it of a quality that’s going to last?

Up-selling seems to be another commercial norm. The old, “Buy 2, get 1 free,” trick. Who really needs a pack of three vegetable peelers? You only need one good one.

Two dollar shops are flourishing, and the internet is full of I-commerce websites with page after page of picturesque adornments, trying to sell a plethora of low priced wares. We are easily convinced. We are barraged with offers from every where and on a daily basis. The mass media, the world wide web, and on our phones. Very few websites are ad-free. There overwhelming numbers of enticing links, urging us to buy. The end result – homes full of broken gadgets.

Before this post gets too lost in itself, I want to make its point clear. Buy Quality. Spend an extra dollar or two and buy things that will last. You don’t need a home or garage full of broken tools and household implements. You only need one good rake, one good shovel, quality knives and kitchen implements, and furniture that’s well made and going to last.

Using the excuse that quality costs money, is a poor appeal for justification. Why? Because you will be replacing cheap quality over and over, then in the end you will have spent just as much on junk anyway. Fork out an extra buck or two, buy it once, and don’t clutter your life with crap.