Throwing Money Away

Every time we donate to a thrift store, we are throwing money away. Well, not really... but many times, we are donating an object that has some sort of monetary value. At least, we like to think so. I mean... it has value to us (maybe more spiritual and emotional) and so we like to think that someone else will see the value as well. We think that once we donate this object, the thrift store will turn around and sell it to some one else. Someone who will love the object and use the object. We benefit by getting rid of our unwanted items. Someone else benefits by purchasing our used item for less than new. And the thrift  store, which we hope is a charity, benefits by selling that object for more than $0. It's really a win-win-win.

But... and you knew there was a but... only about a quarter of the stuff that we donate to thrift stores is actually sold by the thrift store. What happens to all the other stuff? Where does it go? What happens to it? Because we know that every day more stuff is being dropped off at thrift stores across the country and... if only 25% sells... that means that the stores need to either expand or... reduce their inventory.

I know that at Value Village, the colour coded price tags means something. There is a four or five week rotation... and once blue tags (for example) have been out there for four weeks, that material is culled from the shelves and taken into the back. But then what? Maybe you've read the news articles about how Value Village ships our unwanted junk to Third World countries in Africa. Which seems quite irresponsible and Value Village has gotten a lot of flack for that. But... of course... there is more to the story than meets the eye.

I got a crash course in the global trade in secondhand goods when I read Adam Minter's latest book - Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. I had read his earlier book, Junkyard Planet and got a lot of out of it... so his new book seemed like a no brainer. If you get the chance... I highly recommend both books - they are eye-opening to say the least.

So... here's the thing... there is a huge international market in secondhand goods - clothing, toys, tools, computers. And it's not always thousands of miles away. Down near the US/Mexican border, there are hundreds of savvy Mexican entrepreneurs who sift through the Goodwill Stores just across the border in the US, searching for cheap designer clothing, toys and what have you. They buy stuff for cheap, take it across the border, fix it up a bit and then sell it for a good profit. Because, let's face it, we aren't great at repairing things up here. If an appliance breaks, it's often cheaper to buy a new one than to diagnose and repair the old one. Planned obsolescence in action.

As an aside... do you remember Speed Queen? They made/make washing machines and dryers for laundromats, hotels, etc. Their machines are built to last... 25 years or longer and they now sell to the general public. It used to be that Maytag was built to last but... nowadays, not so much. Manufacturers have this planned obsolescence thing down pat... build something that will break in five years so that the consumer has to go out and spend more money and buy a new one. And we wonder why our landfills are overflowing. I got all excited over Speed Queen selling to the public but... they apparently don't sell in Canada (yet). Bummer.

Anyhow... Minter makes a point that planned obsolescene is simply degrading the planet because we use way more resources to make things not just once but over and over again. On top of that... all these obsolete or broken things need to go somewhere. But... while broken things might be too expensive to repair in Canada or the US... that doesn't necessarily apply in developing countries, or even places like Mexico. Get a broken washing machine for cheap at an American Goodwill, fix it up, and then resell it for a hefty profit in Mexico.

And yes, things like clothing, electronics and used cars do get shipped farther afield, to Africa. Let's be really clear... this is not us offloading or dumping garbage on the poor Third World countries. These items are charged with hefty tariffs when they are imported into Africa. And the African entrepreneurs and businessmen who import these things have a discriminating eye. They know what sells in their home countries... and they ship what sells. And what can be repaired. For example... a car is "totaled" in an accident in Canada. What that really means is that the insurance company has decided that it would be more expensive to repair the damage given the depreciated value of the vehicle. But... many "totaled" vehicles are still prepairable. So you will find cargo containers packed with damaged vehicles being shipped to Africa. Each vehicle is also shipped with the parts necessary to repair it. Even accounting for the cost to purchase the vehicle, the tariffs and duties charged to import into Africa... the vehicles are still sold at a profit in Africa.

Some argue that when we export our used clothing, we have essentially killed the African textile industry. Perhaps. But as Minter points out, the Chinese are exporting huge amounts of cheap clothing and electronics of poor quality to African nations as well. The discriminating Africans, however, would much rather have good quality secondhand materials from North America or Europe... if it's fashionable. If it isn't fashionable... forget it. They are, of course, as easily swayed by the latest fashions as we are... and so they will also buy the cheap Chinese knock-offs of Gucci or whatever... even knowing that it won't last beyond a few washes.

As for our electronic waste... maybe you've seen the BBC piece about the toxic e-waste dump at Agbogbloshie in Ghana. So horrible how North America and Europe dump millions of tonnes of e-waste onto Africa where it is burned to extract the metals. Except... as Minter notes, the BBC piece neglected a few key steps in the process. Yes, African entrepreneurs import all sorts of discarded phones, tablets, laptops and computers from the First World. But they don't just toss them on the junk heap. First, the items are examined and repaired. If they are not repairable, then they join a parts stockpile...ready to be pilfered for usable bits and pieces. The repaired items are then sold at a profit. We might think that it would be better to just disassemble and extract all of the valuable metals from these broken devices but... is it not better for these devices to get a second or even a third life before finally being disassembled and their parts used elsewhere? And yes... if our electronics find second and third lives in the Third World, then we need to figure out a way for those countries to be able to process the e-waste in a responsible way when those electronics inevitably die their final death.

This leads to another of Minter's pet peeves... electronics that have been assembled in such a way as to dissuade any sort of repair. Apple is quite bad with this... gluing pieces together rather than using screws, not providing repair manuals, etc, etc. It used to be that the same thing happened with the Big Auto Manufacturers back in the seventies. They wouldn't provide their repair specs to independent auto repair shops... until legislation was about to be passed in one state and then, all of a sudden, Big Auto decided to work with the independents. So... it can be done... 

Minter suggests that if we really want to take climate change and the growing environmental catastrophe looming on the horizon seriously... it starts with us.

• Building things that last - this requires a quantum shift in how clothing (fast fashion), electronics (newer and better), appliances (planned obsolescence) and cars (built to require maintenance) are all manufactured
• Buying (or demanding) things that last... be it clothing, computers, appliances or cars
• Eliminating the "proprietary" nonsense that means things are built to be extremely difficult to disassemble and/or repair
  
• Repairing before replacing... there was a time when my Mom darned our socks before finally tossing them in the rag basket...
  

Finally, Minter has this heart-stopping tidbit for us... nobody wants our old stuff. The wedding china, the cute cat statues, the books, the tchotchkes that mean so much to us... ultimately everything ends up in a dump somewhere because things do eventually break to the point where they can't be repaired. And no, our children and grandchildren (or nieces and nephews) do not want and will not want this stuff. It's a hard pill to swallow because our stuff is so important to us... wrapped as it is in emotions and memories. But to someone else, that little statue of a girl that belonged to my great grandmother is just an ugly tchotchke. It's heart-breaking... we want to believe that our stuff will be loved by someone else... but odds are... it won't be. So... better to look at our proposed purchases with a more discerning eye. Do we really want/need that item... is that item going to last more than a few washes or a few years...