Idea #6: Repair rather than toss and re-purchase.
I am definitely guilty of this one. Too often I will throw away something once it's broken or messed up mildly and go out and buy a new version of the same item. How wasteful! And it encourages planned obsolescence which drives the greedy corporations to make more cheap crap with sweatshop labor.
2 comments:
My husband's parents owned an electronic repair shop (TV's, VCR's, DVD's, stereos, etc), and often the cost of repairs was not worth it for the consumer. I bet 80% of repairs they did were warranty, so the company paid for them. It was rare for someone to choose to repair an item after they got the quote because they could often buy 2 or 3 more new ones for the cost of repairing the old. In Europe they have to pay to dispose of electronics, so it makes more sense to try to repair things first.
I was just almost guilty of this too. I bought a new shower curtain for Alex's bathroom yesterday morning because there was a weird stain on his, and it was only after I got it home that I thought "duh, I should try washing it first." I had just assumed it wouldn't come out, but it did, and I'm returning the new curtain today.
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