On 22/01/2020 18:58, T i m wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 17:27:06 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:
snip
I 'get' the 'I'm caught out and thirsty' thing, even for plain water,
it's the people who you see lugging what must be gallons of often
(still) water home from the shops when they have the same stuff for
1/1000th of the cost (of the water, let alone the environmental costs
of it's packaging and *transportation* S[1]) coming out of their taps
at home.
especially "Fijian water".
Good grief.
"... The Cleveland Water Department ran tests comparing a bottle of
Fiji Water to Cleveland tap water and some other national bottled
brands. Fiji Water reportedly contained 6.31 micrograms of arsenic per
litre, whereas the tap water of Cleveland contained none.[27] In a
2015 test of Fiji Water bottled in November 2014, performed and
reported by the company, the reported arsenic level was 1.2 micrograms
per litre, below the FDA limit of 10 micrograms per litre.[28]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji_Water
This is another thing that gets me, the conspicuous consumption of
stuff, just because you can and / or because of how others 'rate' you
because of it.
In the same way the 'done thing' when you are selling an expensive
house is to fit a new kitchen to sell it and the fist thing any new
owner will do is rip out the brand new kitchen and fit a new one, the
'old' stuff going in the skip (that's part of the effect), not being
offered to friends or on Freecycle etc.
My parents' old kitchen went to their newly purchased property in France
and stayed there until they sold it 29 years later - so they had a
1970's, light green kitchen until last year!
When I bought this house, I kept the existing kitchen for some years
(changing the worktops and damaged sink) and only replaced the rest when
I needed more cupboards and could not match them. Two of the doors were
retained to re-do our electric cupboard in the hall and have just been
re-varnished.
We are now another 15 years on and about to redo the kitchen. The
carcasses will remain, but the worktop near the sink has begun to swell
and needs changing anyway as we are replacing a cooker with a separate
oven and hob, the end one is too narrow since we rearranged the layout
and the third one is too short and so has a joiner where it was extended
for an extra cupboard. The cupboard door foils have begun to peel and
the laminate flooring has suffered from a bit too much water after years
of mopping and a couple of recent floods from a faulty washing machine.
I think we are getting a reasonable life out of most of it.
Like you hear of celebs having stuff 'flown in' especially for them or
only wearing their clothes once (before binning, not recycling them).
I don't send clothes to recycling, but they are worn until they are past
it (even my children's clothes are kept for when I send them under the
floor - my arthritic knees mean that crawling under the floor is
reserved for me carrying out terminations of cables and the like), then
relegated to "work" clothes and finally rags for cleaning. My wife tends
to wear clothes until they start to come apart (I am lucky - she hates
clothes shopping).
I don't begrudge them having the money to do it, I am frustrated that
they don't have the social conscience not to do it.
It is a totally different mindset. We re-use many things and keep others
going long after many people would have discarded them, but it takes an
odd mindset to buy things and use them once. I have difficulty even
buying special tools that may be only used once and do my best to work
around such problems, even though it can cause difficulties trying to do
some jobs.
SteveW