What’s the last thing you bought online?

66Mustang

I just bought some shoes

I like simple thin-soled shoes for driving so I can feel the pedals and bought some for £17.99 last year and they were perfect, however the soles are wearing out where you press the pedals ... maybe I press the accelerator too hard

I tried to find some "better" ones as I like to buy quality stuff if I can, but it just seems you can spend 5 times as much if you want to and all you are getting is a brand name and not actually any superior quality

So bought the same ones again, they've gone up to £18.99

Albus_Scope

I'm teh same with shoes @66Mustang I threw away my favourite trainers last night, a lovely pair of DCs that I've totally worn out over the last 6 years, the fabric was flapping all over the place. RIP old friends. 

Of course, I bought another pair of DCs a few months back, but I couldn't face not wearing my comfy DC slippers.   

66Mustang

@ada

I know what you mean about being proud but I see it as recycling something that would otherwise get thrown into the landfill and being good for the planet

My Dad works for the NHS and very often gets told to dispose of perfectly good and often quite expensive stuff for no apparent reason. A good example is the other day they asked him to throw out a pristine microwave from a good brand that's maybe £100 to buy new. It had only been used maybe 5 times.

He was quite annoyed that they wanted him to put something into landfill that was as good as new... so he relieved them of it, as asked, but now we have a nice new microwave in our kitchen.  

JJinPA

@66Mustang

I never throw anything out… well, old leftovers and other honest garbage I do, but most defunct or even redundant items I'll do my best to repurpose.  Microwaves: The one that came with the house, its buzzer was so annoying I had to get rid of it.  I cleaned it up and gave it to the Salvation Army.  Wow were they excited.  We had a counter top microwave from the old house that now resides atop the upright freezer next to my shop.  It isn't used much but saves me from walking upstairs to warm my coffee.  We had a little microwave that I'd kept in the kitchen with the new one but it went belly up.  It was convenient to have the two because most meals I'll use the big one twice.  But since it doesn't work I stripped it.  The housing is good sheet metal.  I collected all of the switches.  There were two motors, a fan and a reduced gear motor, both very useful.  I don't know what to do with the magnetron yet but I kept it.

If it has screws holding it together I'll usually strip it and piddle its parts away on small projects.  I'll do my best to not send anything to a land fill.  My shop is full of parted parts.  I have a blast playing with repurposing them. 

My moto, nothing is useless.

66Mustang

@JJinPA

A person after my own heart there

I wonder how much better off the environment actually is for producing cleaner but ultimately whole new products (which are often built to be thrown away after a few years) rather than repurposing current ones. As an example, cars? Would the ozone layer be better off reusing the old ones? I have never done any proper research so I can't claim my way would be more environmentally friendly but it does make me wonder

We acquired a KitchenAid which is a good brand designed to last forever but a small silicone worm gear had perished, if I remember right it's designed to as a metal one wouldn't work...however the previous user decided to buy a new mixer and we acquired their KitchenAid  that took an hour and a half of cleaning up and fixing, we had a free mixer that would have cost over £500 new

JJinPA

@66Mustang Thanks!    

As for cars, there are 15 billion cars and trucks on the world's highways.  It wouldn't matter to save and use the old ones.  There would still be 15 billion vehicles.

Any energy we use is going to cost the Earth.  The problem is we keep using more and more.  Very little is manual now.

I've said the rise in the Earth's temperature coincides directly with the rise in traffic.  But the truth is we started using more energy everywhere about the same time.  It's not just cars.

We have built a world that relies on energy.  If there was a sudden and complete loss of energy about a quarter of us would die quite quickly.  Starvation would claim another quarter.  Half the population would perish before the end of the first year.

As I see it the problem is and has always been a complete lack of forethought.  It's all about grabbing all the wealth they can as fast as they can.  There has been no plan for sustainability.

No one is pointing out that the long term deficit of electric cars is going to be worse than petroleum.  We've had petroleum for 100 years.  We won't make it a hundred years with batteries.  We will poison the very ground we rely on.

Those 15 billion vehicles?  They will require new batteries every 10 years or so.  Only 5% of a battery can be reused.  So what are we supposed to do with 1.25 billion dead battery carcasses every year?

Sorry.  Soap box fever.  *Steps down*

OverlyAnxious

Microwaves shouldn't be put into landfill. The WEEE regs have been around for nearly 20 years now. As they're mostly made of iron & a bit of copper, the vast majority of a microwave would be recycled.

You may also find that none of your household waste goes to landfill in your area. Where I live it's incinerated to produce electricity, then magnet fished to pick any iron out of the ash for recycling. Much better long term than just burying it, though obviously better still to reduce the amount of waste produced.

66Mustang

@OverlyAnxious

My brother worked for the council for a bit and told me that a lot of household recycling doesn't get recycled - something to do with the public not being able to be trusted as people often don't separate stuff enough before chucking it in (like taking lids off of bottles)

I don't know if that's true at all or not

I did read something about why there is so much fly tipping though. Apparently the tax on disposing of most trade waste is £100 a ton which sounds quite cheap but ripping out a kitchen can make a few hundred kilos, so dumping it saves them 30 or 40 pounds. I'm not saying that's at all right as I hate seeing fly tipped junk when I'm driving round the countryside but it kind of explains their motivation I suppose

OverlyAnxious

Household recycling is different. It's the household residual waste (previously landfilled) that gets incinerated here.

Plastic recycling is more complicated than many would think. A lot of ours in the UK gets bundled up and shipped to other countries to be recycled. Not all of it does get recycled there, and obviously there's an extra carbon footprint involved in the transportation as well. The plastic bottle return scheme coming soon should work more efficiently. It'll be a closed loop manufacture, where just those particular bottles go back into making new bottles for the same companies in the same country. (PS - Bottles in household waste should be crushed and have the lid refitted now, not removed as was necessary previously.)

Yes, sadly there has been a large cost involved with trade waste for years, plus needing to hold a waste carriers licence as well. Many people will do anything to save a few quid, and think nothing of the environmental impact.

JJinPA

@OverlyAnxious

I think plastics disturb me the most. It's not just that they generally last forever as waste, but they break more readily than a parts made of metal(s). My dad was killed in 1975. I inherited his Black and Decker drill motor. He'd had it since I was little. It must have been manufactured in the 50s. I used it for another 20 years. When it wore out I bought a new Black and Decker drill motor. It lasted only three years before its plastic body cracked leaving the internal parts without support.

I absolutely hate plastics. I understand plastics are easier to mold. I see the appeal. I am hoping with 3D metal printing technology that we will begin to see metal parts again.

66Mustang

My Dad said when he was little there was some kind of return scheme for bottles and cans and as a kid he’d collect littered ones and hand them in for pocket money :D

In some of Africa where my Mum’s been (The Gambia and Senegal) beer companies sell beer quite expensively but give you a significant, not a token, amount back for the bottles. Glass is higher in demand there apparently and the idea is that you are buying the beer, not the bottle it’s delivered to you in

66Mustang

Just to add there’s a significant duty to pay to export beer from there as well!!! My Mum brought some beer back for me to try and they clearly want to discourage the removal of glass bottles from their eco-cycle in their home country!!

66Mustang

I treated myself to another nice bottle of whisk(e?)y yesterday

I have a reasonably diverse selection of whiskies/whiskeys now but I would say I am overexposed to Scotch which may be natural but I wanted to diversify a bit. I purchased an English whisky that is actually made quite near me, in Norfolk. It's a new one which is matured in ex-sherry casks which is quite a common thing to do and it creates a flavour that I tend to like!!

In case anyone gets concerned about me buying whisky I will say I am accumulating it a lot faster than I am drinking it now. One day I will need to pause looking for new ones and spend a few months just using them but I keep seeing something new that I need to add to the collection 😂

JJinPA

Basa wood.

JJinPA

Oops. Balsa wood.

66Mustang

I'm tempted to buy some soft drinks from a Japanese shop because they are doing a sale

66Mustang

Just bought some Japanese fizzy drinks, fruit drinks and some powder to make Matcha (Japanese tea) which I've never had before and am really looking forward to trying 🤔

rubin16

I just subscribed to a monthly snack subscription box, each box is filled with snacks and a drink from a different mystery country. I just fancy trying it for a few months and try new things so i'm quite excited for my first box.

66Mustang

@rubin16

That sounds awesome

I love trying new things as well, I often don't really like stuff I try but I still prefer to try it than not know

What are your favourite things to try??

becw

Cinema tickets to see Deadpool & wolverine😄