If I take something out of service because it's not environmentally sound, can I then give it away?
We think that someone else using it is better than it ending up in the dump. But what about this pile of incandescent light bulbs? I may be saving energy with the swirly bulbs but if I give the incandescent to somebody, isn't the result that the same amount of energy will be used and carbon produced? But that's only true if they use my bulbs instead of buying a fluorescent right? Or if they would have just purchased an incandescent bulb...isn't reuse better than recycling?
If I have a 10 year old refrigerator that uses twice the energy of today's model, can I sell it when I replace it with a new one? We don't want it in the dump either. What's worse?
Maybe we shouldn't be taking anything out of service until it's dead. If every American suddenly got rid of every 10 year or older appliance, we would be swimming in them. Should we ship them to poor countries?
Bottom Line - I have no idea... Why hasn't the question come up before?
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I freecycle stuff. I couldn't decide, it just seems intuitively better not to waste the manufacturing effort and materials, but I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteI think you may be right.
ReplyDeleteKeeping stuff out of the landfill, especially useful stuff, makes good sense. However not buying new efficient things slows the green movement and commerce in general.
So if the goods go to someone who isn't going green or isn't able to buy things anyway, then that seems good.
But if I donate it to Goodwill, get the tax write off and they then sell it in their store to someone who should....oh never mind.
I agree, we freecycle to the needy. But if your brother in-law who isn't green comes over and says "dude, I'll take all those light bulbs"...the answer is no!