Waste Not, Want Not! Let's Resurrect this Old Proverb

Do you remember that proverb?  It’s time to bring it back to life.

We now live in a generation that has not only been enticed and seduced to, but proactively taught and encouraged to, throw away everything.  We now regard just about everything as temporary replaceable throw-away items.  Consumer items are even purposely made to become quickly outdated and passé.

The old norm use to be to preserve what one buys and use it as long as possible—fix, repair, and keep well maintained.  Whether speaking of goods or of money, collecting and saving for the future was the model for good home economics—back in my parent’s day, a generation or two ago.  The new norm has become: Throw it away and buy another, and keep repeating the process.  Spend and expend, that’s the way of it.

Indeed, these days very few items are built to last.  But our landfills are overflowing and beginning to close down.  Seaport city barges are having trouble finding places to dump their waste.  We are running out of dump space.  And yet we still continue to nurture and maintain a kind of “throw-it-away” mentality to satisfy our consumer desires.

Sure, it’s true that we are getting better at recycling.  But it’s slow going.  Suffice it to say that our recycling infrastructure has much to improve.  More than that, our very consumer throw-away mentality needs to change.  We need to re-embrace the wisdom of waste not, want not.  Instead of a use-and-toss mentality we need to reestablish a preserve-and-maintain mindset, especially with respect to the very planet itself.

This is no tree-hugging, nature loving, hippie style sentiment.  It is a reasoned and rationale statement with respect to our need to become more careful and considerate of our resources.  Waste not, want not must apply to our water, oil, land, air, and agricultural uses as well as our objects, things, toys, and gadgets that we consume by the billions each year.  It’s all tied together.

Vendors and manufacturing businesses will continue to sell us throw-away goods as long as we continue to want them and buy them.  We could change this by demanding better.  Tell them that we are willing to spend a little more (no need to get exorbitant here) to purchase longer lasting, more durable, and fixable items.

Might we not tell ourselves that it is worth the inconvenience of not having something so easily tossed into the trash if it’s better for our planet and better for managing our natural resources?  For example, might we not return to using washable and re-usable cotton towels rather than throw away paper-towels for quick cleanup jobs?  Or might we return to using cloth napkins more often than resorting to paper napkins?  Might we not also ask our local community and state government, to make recycling more convenient overall, to make recycling a priority in its waste management services?

There are many ways we can begin to waste not, so as to want not.  But we at least first have to buy into the very principle/proverb that says that this is truly a wise and profitable way to live.