On excess

So, here we are in April, and I really want to wear my spring/summer clothes, but the weather is not cooperating. However, I've already starting to clean out my closets, disposing of winter stuff I didn't wear, and pulling out spring stuff for inspection and sorting. All the disposed stuff will, of course, go to charity; a huge bag was deposited in the CP blue box on Saturday, and there will probably be more.

I'm always amazed by the overflow of goods in our society. We have so much stuff, we have to rent storage places for it all. It's kind of disgusting, when you look at the world's poverty. So many people with so little, and we can't find landfills big enough for our garbage.

This is not to say that I don't buy things; I buys lots of stuff. I try to think ahead of time about whether I really need it, and whether it will last, and about where it was made. I seldom buy goods made in China, for instance; you just can't be sure it wasn't produced through forced labour, or in a sweat shop, and the regime in China is, um, evil (hard to frame that in a nice way). Sometimes, though, I buy stuff I shouldn't, and eventually it'll end up in one of three places: the dump, the donation bin, or our church's annual yard sale.

My point here, is this: today, if you are shopping, think about what you are going to buy - where it came from, what went into it, and its future - before you take it home. If you aren't sure that you need it, maybe you should leave it on the shelf.

A couple months ago I visited the Salvation Army store in Arnprior where my friend Debbie works, and had a tour of the place. There is a room in the back, where they put the bags of stuff people donate. It measures about 10 x 10 x 10. When I was there, the bags were 5 ft. deep, wall to wall, and piled to the ceiling. Debbie tells me this is a quiet time; in the spring and summer, the room is full, as is the bin outside where deposits are made, and the driveway often has items left in it too. Lots of people bring stuff that should go to the dump: tires, broken computer equipment, or faulty appliances, for instance. They have to pay someone to haul it away. Most of their work is done by volunteers, but it's hard to get enough help to stay on top of it all. There is just SO MUCH STUFF coming in.

It's a good thing that people donate their stuff, but why do we accumulate so much that we have to do this?