What happens to your stuff when you die?
And how much can be sold off on Facebook Marketplace?
Good morning, Party People! This installation of Garbage Soup includes a few great reads (this first one is really good and I’d love to hear your thoughts about downsizing/what your plans are for your STUFF when you get older) and some groovy inventions for reducing plastic waste. Expect some cool (if you think garbage-related info is cool) ~content~ in the coming weeks, and let me know what you’ve been thinking about these days. Mwa!
One man’s quest to downsize — without throwing anything away
This man’s effort to unload a big house filled with 20 years worth of stuff is noble and thought-provoking. [Intelligencer]
I am obsessed with this story!! It’s got Facebook Marketplace, it’s got community, it’s got really cool services I’ve never heard of, like one that will remove the parts of your old kitchen and resell them while you do your little renovation thing.
I think a lot about the accumulation of stuff (moving 7+ times as a kid showed me that I could forget about something stored away in a cardboard box for years, but feel too sentimental to part with it). Buying something new means you have to one day get rid of it — how will you do that? will it hurt the planet? — or that it will outlive you and someone else will have to deal with it. It hurts my head a little.
(What about you? Again, would love to know if you have any thoughts or plans for your future stuff — in the comments!)
Something fishy is coming to your living room
The future of sustainable furniture? Couches stuffed with seaweed lmao.
Polyurethane foam rubber, a material derived from petrochemicals and used to stuff soft furnishing, produces 105 million metric tons of CO2 emissions every year, according to Agoprene, a startup making sustainable furniture foam from seaweed. I like this concept and that it makes me imagine all of us living in a SpongeBob SquarePants-type society. [Wired]
Lessons from a zero-waste city
The German word for bottle collector is Flaschensammler!!
The city of Kiel, while not perfect, shows us what’s possible in terms of wasting less. A lot of waste reduction needs to come from some kind of social contract, it seems — in other words, people have to care collectively. “The nice thing is that we could solve half the problem overnight if we, as a society, just wanted to do so,” Moritz Dietsch, told the Guardian (Dietsch is the co-founder of a company that turns about-to-be-wasted produce into chutney and marmalade). From the Guardian:
Awash with waste, cities like Kiel are exploring ways to throw away less and recycle more of what it does chuck. The city council has announced projects ranging from a ban on single-use items in public institutions, to installing more public drinking fountains, to teaching schoolchildren about waste. It is also encouraging people to make simple changes to their behaviour such as using solid bars of soap instead of buying plastic bottles of the stuff.
Other proposals are more systemic. The city is trialling a “pay as you throw” system where people are charged only for the rubbish they throw in the mixed waste bin. A report from the European Environment Agency last year found only about 30% of Germany is covered by such a scheme, even though areas that were covered saw an average drop in mixed waste of 25%.
Oh maybe your medication doesn’t have to come in a new plastic bottle every single month
Meet CabinetHealth, “a plastic-free prescriptions offering refillable bottles and FDA approved medicines, delivered securely to your door.” You receive a glass pill jar (photo above) and every month you’ll receive a your meds by mail in a compostable pouch. Yippee.
Getting reusable pill bottles to become standard is allegedly more difficult than I’d imagine, but nevertheless, it bewilders me that this isn’t already the standard. [Story over on FastCompany]
Most people don’t mind the eyesores of wind/solar installations in their neighborhoods
Nimby who?! Something nice/cute about these findings? The respondents include Republicans, Democrats and beyond. From CleanTechnica:
The MIT authors suggest that, if neighborhoods were more included in the decision making process and they saw a commitment to minimize real and perceived risks, opposition would reduce or cease. Additionally, the authors say that proponents should share whatever technical information they have and involve opposition groups early in project planning and impact assessment. Quick release of information infuses more trust on the part of key stakeholders.