Stuff doesn’t decay in tombs?

You can only survive 0.4 sec without Air Pressure, 4 seconds without a Magnetoshpere, 4 min without Oxygen, 40 min without Heat, 4 days without Water, and 40 days without Food.

Most people would consider them extreme, but then again, a ton of trash every year is pretty extreme in the other direction.

It’s amazing that we’re willing to go to work 40-80 hours/week and we’re not willing to spend an hour keeping our stuff out of the dump.

I’ve taken to ebay->freecycle->goodwill for my consumer goods…I’ve got a couple hundred off of ebay. With freecycle I’ve gotten rid of (backpacks, cat box, gmat study guide, more backpacks, coffeemaker, 15 year old skis) much more than I’ve acquired (adorable dessert bowls). And for goodwill, I’ve figured out that I am one of very few people who don’t give away broken things just to ease my trash guilt.

I’m very lucky that we have giant recycling dumpsters as well as garbage dumpsters at our apartment complex. Right outside is easy.
Has anyone had success getting their apt complex to do composting?

As for my stuff…
Sofa ~5 years (previous were ~15)
Kitchen table ~20+ years (new arriving soon hoping it will last 50+ years)
Bedroom dressers 50+ years
Beds 5+ years.
Computers are rarely more than 3 years old, but software is my industry. TV is about 5 years old…
Clothing is newer – perhaps I’m hard on my clothes, or I like things that tend to wear out, but tshirts don’t last more than 3-4 years anymore for me.

While the motorcycle is newer ’08…the pickup is a ’81…and I may get a classic tag this year…discount on the cost…so the average age is 18 years on the vehicles.

TV is newer maybe 5 years or so after last Sony Trinitron knockoff from Radio Shack pooped after almost 25 years.

Rice Cooker is 30 years old and still works perfect as does 20 year old Hoover Upright Vacuum.

What people throw out/you can buy for a pittance is amazing.

Three months ago at the mailbox for the street neighbor had set out a large box of dishes for the garbage man to pick up.

About 4 different sets most of them with only a cup or plate missing…scarfed all the cups and took to work so we’d have reusable coffee cups…at least until they got broken or lost…beats styrofoam and the money they cost.

We furnished our office with cast offs from the Disney surplus disoposal sales….one of the goodies was a Legal Size Fireproof 5 Drawer Filing Cabinet made by Diebold…with Keys. Bottom drawer roller slide on one side needed replacing…paid $20 for it and another $20 for a new slide…granted it took one of our bigger trucks to tote it home and a LOT of work to get it into the office and it hasn’t budged in 25 years now…darn thing weighs 800 lbs empty. Thing was more than $3000 when new.

Dining tables in the employees breakroom I think we paid $100 for from one of our customers…traded in on new ones they decided they didn’t like orange.

Until the Health Department stopped them doing it (quote: “its unsafe to eat because it takes too long for it to go from fryer hot to completely cold even when immediately put into a 35 degree cooler”…gimme a break!!!) I used to stop and get day old chicken from the Maryland Fried Chicken store….10 cents for a whole wing and 50 cents for a solid white meat center breast…great chicken salad fixins.

Caught one guy next door at the truck stop getting fuel…pickup truck bed full of carrots…all culls from the packing house…misshapen, broken, too long, too short…all going for pig feed…got a giant shopping bag of them for $1…darn good ones too..fresh from the fields and never refridgerated. (carroted out though for a while after…LOL)

I have an 18 year old fridge, and I almost replaced it because there are some state rebates this year, but it makes more sense to wait until it dies (because I am away a lot, and unplug the fridge for half of the year).

Someone commented earlier about old tvs and electronics in landfills. Mine are in my attic and garage. There have been a lot of problems with landfills. In my city, methane gas in an old landfill exploded, destroying houses nearby. It’s easier just to store the old electronic stuff until I find a solution.

Not enough is written, IMO about the connection between doing what’s right for our pocketbooks and doing what’s right for the planet.

Usually, when you do one, the other will follow.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/27/AR2010022701421.html?hpid=sec-business

I would love to see your Coke machine!

Not as impressive as your machine, but noteworthy none the less, was my parents’ first refrigerator, a Kelvinator that was given to them as a wedding gift shortly after World War II. They used it for well over 50 years, first in the kitchen, then in the basement. Similar to your Coke machine, the only “repair” it received in all that time was to replace the rubber door gasket.

Also, our basement tool room is filled with tools from my grandfather, who died 50 years ago.

I own a 1955 Chest Type Coca Cola machine. It was made by Ideal Mfg, in Indiana. To hear it run, you must put your ear to the compressor housing. To my knowledge, it has never been serviced or Freon added. I have ordered a few parts (rubber gaskets and seals) and installed them. I also repainted it in original colors, Coca Cola red and white. It sold the short classic Coca Cola bottle, and it is coined at ten cents. The quality of this is outstanding in every way.
I also own a 1962 Sears Craftsman table saw. The motor is strong and quiet, and with a new carbide blade it will cut nearly any thickness of wood. I inherited this from my dad, when he passed away. Again the quality of the tool is above/beyond what you get today.
I have many other “old” items I use daily. Some have no parts available anymore. These, to me, are treasures. I am very upset with today’s junk, and understand why the landfills are full in that respect.

The last vehicle that we got rid of was a VW Vanagon that was 22 years old. And rather than haul it to a junk yard and receive $75 for it, we gave it to a collector instead.

(Because only the hand brake, not the regular brakes, worked, we drove it to the collector’s house when traffic was light, in the wee hours of the morning. But then on the way there, the hand break also broke.)

Currently our newest car is 11 years old and our oldest car is 17 years old.

When it comes to clothes, we tend to wear things out. If our worn-out clothes can’t be used for rags, we take them to the local recycling center.

(I admit, though, that I probably won’t wear out everything in my closet. I’m thinking about one decades-old suit jacket with gigantic shoulder pads out to there . . .)

As far as furniture goes, everything we own is more than 10 years old. Our sofa is 30 years old and, unfortunately, looks it. Two of our pieces of furniture, a chest and a linen press, are more than 200 years old. (Thankfully, wooden furniture holds up longer than upholstered furniture does.)

Our house isn’t quite as old as our oldest furniture. It was built 103 years ago.

The point of 10-year-old items in our homes is a salient one. Most of my friends scoff when I tell them I still wear jeans from high school, or that I’m using my childhood bureau. They delight in their acquisitions.

Looking around my home, many core elements of my life were paid for over a decade ago, but it doesn’t look as if I’m a packrat. Why discard something that’s still functional?

Maybe that is why your blog make so much sense to me – I’ve always understood and lived by this aesthetic.

Not surprising when you drive down my street and see large, rolling 65 gallon trash cans loaded full every week. What especially pisses me off is that I routinely see cardboard and other recyclables sticking out. I’m not sure what my neighbors are doing, considering we have about one trash bag per week plus our recycling container which is usually overflowing.

I’d love to approach some neighbors and say something, but how to approach it?