Folk are soooo wasteful

Snow_Angel

JackieO wrote:

Are we living in a throw-away society or is it just me being old-fashioned ?

I went to put the rubbish out today for the dustmen in the back alley...I had a quarter black bag full for the week. The house that backs onto the alley opposite mine.........:eek: ....... 15 - yes FIFTEEN black bags of rubbish, 2 white bags that I could see through FULL of clothes, a box full of toys (which appeared to have nothing wrong with them), a cd player (fair enough it may be broken but the tip 3 miles away has a electronic recycling section), 3 perfectly useable plastic storage boxes....all to go in the landfill. I am utterly horrified :eek:
Next week I plan to do a 2am raid of their rubbish to check they are not doing this again.

Sarahsaver

Some people live off 'discarded' food - freegans

kittiwoz

Snow_Angel wrote:

I went to put the rubbish out today for the dustmen in the back alley...I had a quarter black bag full for the week. The house that backs onto the alley opposite mine......... ....... 15 - yes FIFTEEN black bags of rubbish, 2 white bags that I could see through FULL of clothes, a box full of toys (which appeared to have nothing wrong with them), a cd player (fair enough it may be broken but the tip 3 miles away has a electronic recycling section), 3 perfectly useable plastic storage boxes....all to go in the landfill. I am utterly horrified

I would have half-inched the lot. It's not like they'd mind. I'd probably have no use for most of it, though I could do with some storage boxes, but I'd have e-bayed it or taken whatever wasn't worth selling to a charity shop.

tomstickland

I always have a good look in any skips - people throw away perfectly good items because they "can't be bothered" to sell them or give them to someone else. It's about an attitude though - laziness versus being bothered because you originally paid for an item.

Most worrying are stories about people who "have a new kitchen every 3 years" just because they do.

mah_jong

And bathrooms are on average changed every 10 years...... well over 20 here and its still fine!

As for the broom.... had it thirty years and its still as good as new, just had two handles and three heads ....Ok so that was a joke....a very old joke but we are recycling here!!!:T

I am more disturbed by the food that is thrown out, so uttterly wasteful and there is absolutly no need for it.

chardonnay_2

the house we are just about to move from we bought as a repossession. it had piles of stuff under the floor and they left the loft full of stuff. my oh emptied under the floor which had a variety of things. the broken or grotty stuff he left in a pile at the edge of our garden before the skip came and most of it disappeared! the rest we have taken to car boot sales and made some money from.

we're not perfect and don't recycle as much as we should but what we do is better than nothing.

we are having a major declutter and going through everything in the loft theirs & ours to either ebay or car boot.

ScoobieGirl

MORPH3US wrote:

It makes me sad every time I go to the tip to see all of the stuff people throw away :mad:
M

I know! I was there yesterday dutifully putting all my garden waste in the skip to be recycled into the free compost and the people in the car next to me were throwing away box after box of things that would be welcomed by many charity shop, a lot of them in thier original packaging. What is it that goes through peoples heads that make them think that "I'll drive to the tip, but I can't be bothered to go to the charity shop or wait a week for them to come round and pick it up"

I wish I was the type of person that could have said something. I would have taken it off them and driven round to the charity shop myself.

piglet6

I think that recycling in any way is a bonus...;)

When we bought our house, it was the sale of the home of a deceased "novogenarian" gentleman (sold by his daughter who was just interested in the available cash:o). She "kindly" offered us the majority of his furniture/fittings (the house was exactly as he had "modernised" it in the early 1950's:eek:) for a - fairly high...and extremely overpriced - price:eek:. We declined her (not terribly generous!:rolleyes:) offer...she was wanting additional "thousands" for an elderly fridge/cooker/carpet strips...:rotfl:

Obviously, when she got a quote from a house clearance company, she got quite a jolt into reality. When we arrived at the house on completion day, everything she had offered us for a price (which we had declined:cool:) was still in the house (for free...!:T - clearly, she didn't want to pay the clearance company's price!!!).

It cost us the price of a skip for some of the things (carpet strips, etc) but some of the things (i.e. the cooker) we are still using:D. Other things, which we were not wanting, we moved to the garage and invited our friends round for a "freebie" garage sale. They helped themselves to what they wanted (yes, we could have sold things at car boot sales/on ebay but we didn't pay for them in the first place and, as we didn't want them, so we decided that our friends could benefit from this generosity and claim some "free stuff"!!). Many households in our area are now benefitting from the "generosity" of the old guy's daughter (although I am fairly sure that she was only being "generous" by default :o - if we had offered her a tenner, she would have snapped our hand off...she was actually only being lazy, and refusing to pay to have bits and pieces removed!!:rotfl:).

Either way, I am delighted that we (and our friends) are making use of things which would have otherwise been consigned to the scrap heap.:beer:

Piglet

P.S. OK, I guess we did pay for the things in the first place (within the house price...) but we would have bought the house for the same price irrespective of the additional extras...

kiwichick

mah_jong wrote:

I am more disturbed by the food that is thrown out, so uttterly wasteful and there is absolutly no need for it.

I don't understand the way food is thrown out. Especially by companies/business's who could use it to benefit others.eg.the homelss shelters/womens refuge etc etc.

I questiones the manager of a doughnut and bagel shop in Lakeside late one evening, it closes at 10pm then so that kind of time. He was standing in front of the stands throwing all the unsold food in the bin! I nearly died of shock and asked him why he wasnt giving it to a shelter or similar and he told me that he would love to but legally they cant. He said that no business in Lakeside can do it in case someone gets ill from old food.

Absolutely flippin bonkers IMHO, I can understand things like the mayonaise fillings but sure plain bagels and doughnuts are fine!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Is it the same with all business's?? Does that mean we cant donate food to such places if it isnt packaged/tinned?

thrifty_sue

My husband used to work in pizzahut and he said they used to throw out all the uneaten/unused pizza's at the end of the day, at least 20-30, sometimes more. What a waste!!!