Things I Can Live Without

The husband was looking for the hair dryer the other day and I had to inform that we hadn’t actually had a hair dryer for over two years. And it took him two years to notice it was missing. After the last one blew out, I never bothered getting another one. It was one of those unnecessary things that not only waste electricity but something I could live without.

Also getting rid of the hairdryer certainly helped reduce my carbon footprint.

So it got me wondering…what else can we live without? What other items in our homes that once seemed so important have, since our new awareness, become energy wasting, carbon footprint enlarging, planet endangering, wastes of money?

A quick stroll around the apartment was enough for me to see what needs to go or, to be less wasteful, will not be replaced when it goes to electronic heaven.

Hairdryers (hair dries all by itself)

Curling irons, straighteners and other useless energy wasting bathroom appliances

Personal CD players (a little outdated and certainly redundant)

VCRs (and DVD players if you have TIVO and Netflix)

Stereo systems (just dinosaurs really)

Radios

Broken printers

Outdated desktop computers

Irons (line drying makes this a waste of time and energy)

Extra televisions (really you don’t need more than one)

Craze kitchen appliances (i.e. celebrity endorsed grills that get used once and aren’t worth the carbon footprint it took to make them)

All these things can go along with many more if I thought about it a little more. The more we buy disposable consumer goods, the more manufacturers will produce them, adding dangerous pollutants into the air and adding to the intensity of climate change. I watch these documentaries that explain how manufacturers make good to be disposable, fads, crazes, plastic what nots that soon become landfill fodder. Electric appliances are made to break quickly so they are thrown away and consumers consume more and more. We have to stop this and learn what’s important and what we have that’s sustainable and what’s just excess that harms the planet.

It’s important to dispose of appliances and electronic equipment responsibly. Many items contain contaminants and precious metals. We can live without a lot of things. If we think about it for a minute there is many reasons to reject the consumer cycle of buy, discard buy again.

I’m learning to live without and feeling better for it as well.