Butterflies

Buy Second Hand

You hipster fuck.

In the world of planet-saving waste management there are three, five or eight principles of sustainability depending on who you listen to. These are, in different combinations and according to varying levels of fundamentalism: Rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, repurpose, recycle and rot.

We should rethink every penny we spend to make sure we’re not casually buying our way to oblivion. We should refuse polluting products made from dirty-bad oil and other non-recyclables, choosing sustainable materials all the time always. We should reduce the stuff we buy, giving first world materialism what for. We should reuse stuff as much as possible, rejecting the single-use disposability we’ve passed off as convenience. We should repair our broken stuff instead of replacing it, even if it’s more expensive. We should repurpose unwanted stuff we’ve got knocking about, turning a jam jar into a plant pot, upcycling a hot water bottle into a hipster colostomy bag. We should recycle whatever we haven’t rethought or refused and can’t reuse, repair or repurpose, turning junk into future non-junk. And we should let degradable stuff rot, composting what can be composted to circle us some life.

At least three of the above Rs got together to ruin my childhood, destroy my playground street cred and inspire this Butterfly: Buying second hand.

Picture now that last CD you bought. Trees were cut down and transported to make the paper sleeve, oil was drilled and transported to make the plastic disc and case. You, being a monster, bought it brand new.

Picture now some other schlub buying the same CD. Trees were cut down and transported to make their paper sleeve, oil was drilled and transported to make their plastic disc and case. They also bought it brand new, listened to it twice and ditched it at a charity shop.

Calculate now some enviro-maths: Had you bought their CD second hand it would have used half the oil, half the paper, saved you a bit of money and given some cash to charity. You don’t need a brand new copy of Thriller. It’s stupid and wasteful. We’ve got 60 million copies knocking about the surface of the earth. Get one of them instead. This is basic.

You can buy pretty much everything second hand: Yer clothes, yer furniture, yer bikes, yer knick-knacks. Yer bric. Even yer brac. Buy second hand clothes, you’ve saved the massive amounts of water it takes to make cotton, the oil it takes to make synthetic fabrics and the animals it takes to make wool, and given fast fashion one in the eye. Buy second hand furniture you’ve saved the trees it takes to make wood, and delayed non-recyclable fibreboard and laminates’ eventual trips to landfill. Buy a clapped-out teapot, you’ve got a hipster’s plant pot. Buy a former stepladder, you’ve got an upcycler’s bookcase. Buy anything owned by anyone before, you’ve done a good thing.

Naturally, this being The Zero, there are some enviro-ethics to torture ourselves with: Buying second hand books and CDs stiffs authors and artists on royalties, many of them already boned by profitless multibuys and lousy returns from streaming services. Yer Stephen Kings, yer Beyoncés might be able to go without your cash but yer up and comers will struggle to both up and come. Maybe we should decide on an author-by-author, artist-by-artist basis whether to prioritise the planet or its bards and minstrels.

Mostly, though, buying second hand is ace, no longer the last refuge of the single parent, no longer the shame of children of ne’er-do-wells. Buying second hand saves resources and energy and reduces carbon emissions from production and transportation. It doesn’t mean our dad lives in a bin, it doesn’t mean our mum works the street, and getting free school dinners doesn’t make us tramps. And I didn’t need friends anyway. I had plenty to do on my lunch breaks, like crying alone and planning my kick-ass entrance at a future school reunion. Speaking of which, I’m off to see a man about a second hand helicopter…

Buy second hand

 

Save resources

 

Save the goddamn world

 

Photo credit: Mashita at DeviantArt

Related Blog Posts

Alone in electric dreams

Alone in electric dreams

After 11 months of dithering, three nights of barely any sleep, and one day of sweating with guilt in a showroom, I finally bought an electric car. Here’s how it’s been:

Public charging, it turns out, is a piece of piss.

The Big Plastic Count: World’s Worst Typo Successfully Avoided

The Big Plastic Count: World’s Worst Typo Successfully Avoided

Among the million things we need to do to avert climate breakdown, kicking the arse out of plastic is one of the most urgent. Plastic comes from dirty-bad oil, gas and coal, using about 4.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and about 6% of coal-fired electricity in its production. We’re bringing on the sixth mass extinction for the sake of shrink-wrapped broccoli.

Doing nothing for the environment

Doing nothing for the environment

In my withered, Covid-infested state I find myself doing less and less for the big battles we need to win: Yer climate breakdown, yer rise of fascism, yer eating the rich. But recently I’ve discovered a critical area of climate activism that requires even less effort than doing very little: Doing nothing at all! By which I mean I’m buying less shit.

9 life hacks for ignoring the IPCC climate report

9 life hacks for ignoring the IPCC climate report

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the IPCC – issued its latest report this week, pointing out how monumentally fucked we are because we like cars, burgers and mass extinctions. It makes for grim reading – but only if you actually read it. Here are nine ways you can avoid giving it any thought at all!

An almost buyer’s guide to electric cars 2: Electric car boogaloo

An almost buyer’s guide to electric cars 2: Electric car boogaloo

Desperate to avoid petrol I hired an electric car for the purposes of hard science. I requisitioned a Renault Zoe for a few days, rented a lab coat and three pens for its pocket, bought a clipboard outright and began the grand experiment. The key tests were how well the battery lasted with my commute and the business of social work, how quickly it drained when parked overnight, how big a pain in the arse public charge points are, and how often I’d have to use the buggers.

An almost buyer’s guide to electric cars, maybe

An almost buyer’s guide to electric cars, maybe

Back in the arse-end of 2019 I finally ditched my car, having decided humanity was marginally more important than an easy commute. But then Covid hit. And hit me right in the face. Almost two years later I’m still having trouble walking, still working fully from home and only just starting full time hours. I need a car. Which means I need an electric car, which means a lot of expense…

Climate anxiety: The self-righteousest of all anxieties

Climate anxiety: The self-righteousest of all anxieties

And so we find ourselves on the eve of COP26, where highfalutin delegates from around 200 countries will come together in Glasgow to either unite the world to tackle climate change or to talk shit, greenwash their failures and prove virtue signalling is a real thing after all. In preparation I’ve been hard at work on my soul-crushing climate anxiety. This requires long nights lying awake fretting, long days doomscrolling social media. It requires your heart pounding against your ribs so hard it actually makes a noise.

A three-legged carbon footprint

A three-legged carbon footprint

My grand return to the world of disability hasn’t been great for carbon footprinting. The early, housebound stage was amazing, obviously. The plus side of not leaving my bed for months is that it reduced my emissions – and my activity, social life and hope – to zero. But as I got more with it, public transport was no longer an option…

Blog archives

Share This