I took everything off my bathroom counter to clean it, and in the process I found a few stretched-out hair elastics and a couple of hair pins that seemed to have turned rusty from the wet bathroom counter. So I threw them all in the garbage.
This then is our garbage problem. Things that are theoretically still useful, but realistically we aren't going to use them. The elastics could still anchor hair or serve other elastic-type purposes, but realistically I'm not going to use them when I have others that aren't stretched out. The pins could still pin hair, but they seemed rusty, and besides I've since found other pins that work better on my hair. They both came in packages of several dozen from the dollar store. Even if there is someone else who could use them, it would be practically insulting for me to freecycle them since they're so small and cheap and in such poor condition. Even if I didn't throw them out, even if I committed to keeping them until I got full use out of them, they would still be sitting around my apartment doing nothing for literally years because I have more useful similar items in my home right this minute.
They aren't poorly made - all elastics lose their elasticity eventually, and the pins were simply being metal that got wet. They weren't an ill-advised purchase - the elastics did their job and the pins were the best I could find at the time I purchased them (the better ones I've gotten since then weren't available at the time). I suppose I could have been more careful about not getting the hair pins wet, but leaving a hair pin on the bathroom counter isn't the greatest irresponsibility ever.
But they're still technically useful, I'm never going to use them, and now they're in the garbage. What do we do about this?
4 comments:
I wonder, if our garbage problem was reduced to only things that fit under this category, would we still have a garbage problem?
I don't know, I'm really asking.
Right this minute my garbage cans are populated mostly by kleenex and cotton balls, which I think can go in the green bin once they ever deign to bring the program to highrises.
Once you get rid of that, I'm left with the few types of food packaging that aren't recyclable, used-up beauty products, and household objects that are either completely broken or theoretically still useful but functionally useless.
So it would be very little - less than 10% of what I'm currently putting down the chute - but I ddon't know how low it needs to go to stop being a problem.
Now that we have the green bin going, and all our napkins, tissues, cotton balls, q-tips and other disgusting used paper goes in there, we hardly have any garbage.
In fact, if Mississauga took dog poop the way Toronto does, we'd have one garbage bag every 3 or 4 weeks. 75% of our non-recyclable garbage is dog poop.
"but I ddon't know how low it needs to go to stop being a problem."
Good point. It still adds up.
Your garbage bags must be disgusting! I mean, poo itself doesn't gross me out particularly, but the idea of a garbage bag that's 75% poo is just scary. If I was the garbage collector, I'd rather have more household waste in there just to lower the poo density.
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