I am a child of Baby Boomers. Their parents lived through the Great Depression. Those who survived the Great Depression learned to keep, reuse, and recycle everything. You never threw anything away because you may not have the money to replace it. You also learned to recycle or reuse items for a different purpose. A broken tea cup would become a flower pot for your herbs; or a worn out pair of curtains was remade into an apron. This generation knew more about recycling than we could ever understand even with all the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle education we have received. These patriarchs could teach us about appreciating what we already have instead of always wanting more. But their savvy ways of reusing taught the Baby Boomers to never throw anything away. Baby boomers were taught to save everything, and I mean everything, for a rainy day. Well the Baby Boomers listened to their parents, but unlike their parents, the economy was booming so the Baby Boomers could afford to buy not only their needs, but their wants as well. This led to houses full of stuff. Then came my generation. We watched our parents never ever throw things away which drove us crazy because our houses were always cluttered. We could never find anything in our over cluttered bedrooms, so we bought more stuff. But we added a new element. Nothing really had any value to us. We had so much stuff, we really never learned to appreciate it. So we became the Throw-away generation. Everything is disposable. If a new smart phone comes out, we rush to the store to purchase it and give the old phone to our toddler to chew on. We throw our Christmas lights away at the end of the season so we don’t have to store them. We produce more garage than any generation before us.
Each generation had valuable lessons to teach. Recycling and reusing is a great idea. Never throwing things away or throwing everything away are not the best ideas. We need to find a happy medium. Ping Hauling & Home Services can help you find that balance. We will come pick up your stuff and recycle, reuse, and donate what we can and appropriately dispose of the remainder.