Disposable products have their appropriate place in the economy. Disabled people often need plastic straws, and shouldn’t feel bad for it. But in most circumstances, outside of medical or accommodative items, there are better choices. Steel or glass straws, industry standard safety razors rather than proprietary disposable cartridge systems, quality used real wood furniture instead of semi disposable MDF crap. Metal over plastic. Long term sustainability over short term savings.
Ebooks are neat, but ultimately it’s a lump of plastic that will be outlived by a cheap paperback. Cast iron cookware can cost less than aluminum or carbon steel when bought used, and should outlive several generations of owners. CDs and LPs may take up more space, but they don’t need a monthly fee or an internet connection to play them.
And a lot like.Amazon's #Kindle.have obnoxious #DRM, but if you need thousands of pages that are searchable on the go then sadly there are few options.besides that and Tablets/Laptops with them on...
Personally, I prefer to #UseLonger wherever possible.and #upcycle the hell out of my gear...
Which is not to say you should eschew all conveniences. Only that you should prioritize shaping your material world into one where you do not need to keep buying the same stuff, over and over again. Have you not things you would rather spend money on than another $40 pack of disposable razor cartridges?
Life is expensive. It is made no less so by ten thousand things you have to keep replacing every so often. I would rather spend $35 on a steel safety razor once and then $6 every 3 months on blades than the $45 my roommate was spending a month on plastic Gillette cartridges. I spend $2 on a CD or record at Value Village, and I don’t ever have to pay for it again.
The finality of real ownership of durable goods adds up quick.
@mos_8502 This mentality of throwing and replacing has shocked me even more since moving to Brazil. Most people heavily repair and re—uses for economic reasons but the system is heavily biased on the other direction.
When your work day is worth little $ the best way to counter the effect of poverty is to do stuff yourself. And that is made incredibly hard by intent: no replacement pieces, no information. Astonishingly YouTube and even Tik-Tok are transformative.
@mos_8502 shure.
OFC it very much depends on circumstances and options.
For example MDF + Wood Veneer sheets are easier to work with and cheaper for smaller projects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fnsGHe8eE&t=640s
The most extreme example is using nice looking yet expensive materials like Pink Ivory wood that would be basically unobtainable and unaffordably expensive as a giant slab to mill from.
OFC if it was a commercial product, one would likely use powder coated sheet metal or brushed aluminium and not MDF.
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