Every year, I took my students for a tour of the local recycling center. Every year, we had the same guide, and last year, he said something that comes back to me almost every day. He took us to see the mountain of things they find that can't be recycled. There were beds, TVs, chairs, tables, lamps, appliances. Most of them looked to be in very good condition. And then he asked the kids, "What are we Americans really good at?" And they answered with him, "At throwing stuff away."
A couple of days ago, I visited my boy in the Bay Area. He rides his bike ~ which he found at a second-hand store ~ a lot, and the derailleur had gone out. "It's an old bike," my husband said. "Ditch it and get yourself a new one." "Take it to a bike shop and have it fixed," I said. How old school are we? I ended up driving him and his bike to a DIY fix-it shack in Oakland. When I came back for him two hours later, he was riding up and down the street, smiling. He had fixed it himself.
Unrelated to that place except in concept, Peter Mui started Fixit Clinics in 2009, and they've gotten so popular, he's expanded from his hometown of Albany, CA, to Minneapolis, Knoxville, and Boston. "I'd like to get as many going as possible," he says. "It's a ton of fun just to watch people fix something they'd given up on": http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201301/act-fixit-clinic-300.aspx
Actually it came from craigslist! Sometimes I forget that this isn't the way everyone operates. Really most people in the world don't buy new things when stuff breaks. A lot of folks don't even buy new stuff to begin with and either fix up old things or build what they need from other bits of refuse. Most of the time this has to do with the cost, but their ingenuity and skills are to be admired. Glad it could inspire you some though. :)
ReplyDeleteAges ago, I had an old Saab (a fantastic and funny-looking car that doesn't even exist anymore) that I pretty much drove into the ground. One afternoon, I was toodling along on Vermont or Normandie or one of those byways when the muffler fell apart and began dragging on the street, sending up sparks. I pulled over, and two old locals asked if they could help. Long story short (too late, I know!), one of them found an old, empty used can, they cut the bottom off it, stuck both ends of the broken tailpipe into it, and crimped it tight. It worked! I was so impressed that I remember it to this day.
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