The thing is, suddenly, they see so many things and produce, edible or still in good condition and it's all thrown away, either at wholesale markets, or retail outlets or left by the void deck or in dumpsters.
At the start, I also asked myself... Why?... why do people throw away good stuff?
I'm talking about most normal people. Let's not talk about outliers.
Now, I tend not to ask why and just take things for free if it's available.
But I took a bigger interest recently to think more seriously about it...
WHY? Why do people throw away good stuff?
I mean... no one in the right mind would buy something and just throw it away. Usually, that doesn't happen.
More often than not, people use something til it spoils then they dump it. That's the typical normal behavior.
But many of the dumpster divers regularly find good clothes being thrown away.
Or good food, still not expired, even instant noodles or canned food.
And that's the point where many people wonder "why"?
For me, I have a lot of clothes and I could easily dispose of them. But I think I'd likely slowly use them up throughout the years so I'll just keep them. I don't continuously buy clothes so I tend to have a slow but steady decrease in my quantity of clothes as they get spoilt and I dispose them.
But many people buy clothes throughout the year and not for replacement. They buy excess clothes when their clothes are still fine.
And after awhile, they get overloaded with clothes. Like after Christmas or during the annual spring cleaning. So they just take everything and just dump them. And I understand, that sometimes, when the clutter is too great, the best idea is just to dump everything.
Not to mention, sometimes, it's hard to give away items, cos they have to look for people to give it to, and many charity organizations require the individual to transport the item to the organization itself. And I don't blame the people for dumping the items. Cos nothing is easier than to just dump the items. Instead of having to find someone to give the items to. Why bother?
This is also true for food. They may buy some canned food that they want to try, but after they open one can, they realize they don't really like this brand and they just keep the can but buy another can of a different brand. But they don't use the old can cos they just don't like the product. And this happens for a while and the cupboard gets stocked up with different brands of food that the person wanted to try but in the end they didn't like it. But they didn't want to throw it away, cos it's so wasteful, but they don't like it enough to eat it to finish it.
And eventually, they just think, heck, just dump it. So they dump the whole load of unexpired food. Cos there's just so much in the cupboard, but they know they won't eat it cos they don't like it.
And similar to the above, they think that it's going to be troublesome to pass it on and it's likely easier to just dump it.
So the question becomes, if people know where to pass the stuff to, AND it is convenient to pass the items on to others, would they still rather throw it away? I typically doubt it. I mean... I understand certain instances where people might not want to pass stuff on, like maybe females won't want to pass to others their underwear, etc. But I would think most people would be ok to pass on their stuff to other people IF it were convenient to do so.
Which comes to the point of this post. Are people wasteful? Or just clueless?
I would think, most people aren't wasteful, but they are clueless, or rather, they don't know better. They don't know where they can pass on their stuff easily and conveniently.
I mean... if you receive a new phone for Christmas, the first thing you do won't typically be to throw away your old phone. Most people keep their phones for a while first as a spare, then after a couple of years, they might throw it away. I'm sure most people would be ok to pass them off to the less fortunate people, as long as the memory of the phone can be securely wiped clean.
Even for shop owners... the freegan group has talked to some vendors. And many vendors are ok to give unsold produce to them for distribution to charitable organizations. As long as the produce isn't given away to people who would usually buy their stuff. Cos that would affect their business, but if it's passed on to a party which would not have consumed their stuff anyway, then they don't really bother.
When usually they would just throw it away, now, the freegan group has now made it convenient for them to pass on their stuff to people who could use it better.
I think this is the same for everyone else. I previously was clearing my stuff from my old place. And I had similar issues. I tried to get organizations to come to collect stuff, but they required me to send it to their place, so for my own convenience, I just dumped everything downstairs. And I fully understand that way of thinking. For me, my own interests should come first. If along the way, I can help others, then that's great, but to go out of the way and incur costs... I think that would be unreasonable to expect of most people.
So I don't think people are wasteful by nature, rather, it's just troublesome to pass on stuff to other people. Or they don't know who to pass it on to. So the easiest thing to do is just to dump it. And I don't blame them.
It's just unfortunate that it's not so easy to connect the people who want to pass things on with the people who are willing to accept them.
<<PREVIOUS POST // NEXT POST>>
Did you like this post? If so, could you "blanjah" me 1/4 cup of my morning coffee pls.
Many thanks for continuing to come to this blog to read my posts.