Dec. 8th, 2019

walkitout: (Default)
I do not think I left the house all day. I did some holiday gift shopping and charitable giving. I finished reading Adam Minter’s _Secondhand_. It is really good, especially the section debunking and unpacking the media frenzy over Agbogbloshie over the last few years. I had really wondered about that, because it did not actually make sense to me that people would be shipping e-waste to Africa just to dump it. And, indeed, they are not!

Minter is at his most annoying when he is blathering on about how no one has a sewing repair kit anymore (oh, yes we do! He may hang things up and forget them because of missing buttons, but if I have a button go, I put it back on and/or send it off to the thrift. It may be worn enough that I do not care to wear it again even with the button, but I sometimes will put the button back on before donating to make it easier on anyone who might feel otherwise. Of course that maybe makes it harder for people looking to do fiber recovery. *shrug*). It makes little sense to talk that way and then turn around and advocate for independent repair shops having access to manuals and so forth, and for individuals to be able to do that sort of repair. I mean, if you cannot be bothered to fix a button, are you really going to replace the screen on your smart phone or tablet? I do not know. We do fix things around here, tho; it is not the lost art that he tends to portray it as being. I have friends who fix things, to.

There is a lot to think about, in terms of how the secondhand trade has evolved over time. I like that he really believes / understands it will continue to change; I am not sure I completely agree with him about how it will change. I also tend to think that getting away from shipping everything everywhere would be for the best, but we really agree there in some ways (it would be nice to equalize the planet, and not have such a gap between haves and have lesses).

I will look forward to whatever he writes next; Junkyard Planet and Secondhand are both really great to read, lots of fun, great perspective, timely, and important in terms of supporting good policy and making good household decisions.

August 2025

S M T W T F S
      1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11121314 1516
171819 20 21 2223
24252627282930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Aug. 23rd, 2025 11:37 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios