Tip 99: Buy less stuff that is made to be thrown away
Some products are made to be purchased and then thrown away. Why would anyone buy something just to throw away? Products like paper towels, garbage bags, disposable diapers, soap, and cleaning chemicals are disposable- you buy them and then throw them away or wash them down the drain.
If you follow my tip on making your own rags, you won’t need to buy paper towels. You can wash a rag and use it over and over.
How many different cleaning chemicals do you really need? I try to just stick with a few basic cleaning products instead of having a lot of specialized cleaning products to store and sort through.
Whenever I buy something, I try to think about the exit strategy for that item in my mind. How will I throw it away or get rid of it? Sometimes this helps me decide not to buy something. If it will be a lot of trouble to dispose of, or if I realize that it will not have a very long useful life before I need to dispose of it, then maybe I don’t want to buy it.
I recently threw away an old TV set at the landfill. It was a small 13 inch TV set, an old fashioned tube TV. It came with the house I bought and I had no use for it. Actually, I recycled it rather than throwing it away- you are not supposed to throw away old CRTs at my landfill. But wait, there’s more- I had to pay a fee of $10 to recycle it! This free TV set ended up costing me some money to throw away.
I also ended up with a bunch of compact fluorescent light bulbs. I am switching to LED light bulbs, so I’ll need to get rid of the compact fluorescent bulbs. They contain mercury, so a special trip to the landfill or to a recycling station is needed to dispose of them.
Another type of product that gives me pause when I think about throwing it away is the cheap flat-pack furniture that you can buy at Target, Walmart, and other stores. I have several bookshelves like this that are made out of particle board, not solid wood. They are heavy, but likely won’t last very long because the particle board is not very strong. I wouldn't want to burn them to get rid of them because the adhesive in the particle board would release toxic fumes. Maybe I could break them up into small enough pieces to throw them away with my garbage, but that sounds like a lot of work. Perhaps it would be better to find some used solid wood bookshelves instead, so I wouldn't need to think about disposing of them for a long time.
Thinking about how long a product will last and how you will get rid of it can help you avoid buying things you won’t get much value from owning.
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