The Bizarre World of Other People's Stuff

I really love other people's discarded stuff. I grew up wearing charity shop clothes, and generally still do. What you can find second-hand is generally much more interesting than what you can buy new, especially in this era of bland mass-produced fast fashion. 

It never ceases to amaze me what people throw away. I often think that we, as a society, have entirely lost our sense of perspective, of the value of things. We expect our new clothes to cost next to nothing - how can a T-shirt cost £1.50? The material to make it, the wages of the person who stitched it, the cost of shipping it halfway around the world to a store near you, let alone the livelihood of the farmer who grew the cotton or the weaver who formed the fabric, are not reflected in the price tag any more, as big stores sell individual items at a loss to achieve more sales and swell their overall profits (for the CEOs, naturally, not the workers actually producing the garments). 

But at the same time as we consumers hunt out our wear-me-once disposable bargains, those who are more affluent are also buying and disposing. I once worked in the rag bin at a recycling centre. Literally in the bin, which I don't think is allowed any more. It was a shipping container with open doors for people to throw in their bags of old clothing. My job was to go through that clothing by hand and rescue any that could be resold in the sales shed or on eBay. The remainder (all those £1.50 T-shirts) was exported to developing countries, to be sold on their markets, recycled into fire blankets and insulation, or - just as likely - end up in their landfills.

I was not paid money for this. Instead I was allowed to take away any clothes that I wanted, which I could then resell to make a living. If this was still allowed, I'd still be doing it, but, at least locally, there are now no more rag bin workers. The shipping container has been replaced by charity shop bins, which essentially perform the same function except the stock is sorted in a shop or warehouse instead of by unpaid workers crawling over precarious mountains of stuff. It wasn't the most well-regulated or ethical job, but I enjoyed it, I wore my protective gear religiously (needles and nappies abounded), and if I was doing it now I could make a mint, what with all the resale sites springing up such as Shpock, Vinted and Depop. I know it wasn't ideal and I can see that there was great potential for exploitation, but for me it worked - I set my own hours, I was never bored, and my own wardrobe was in great shape.

And the finds! Gucci shoes, unworn, still in their box with the eye-watering three figure price tag. Two pairs of New Rock boots (one pair of which I still have, twelve years later, and I can report they are still going strong). A Victorian top hat. Just thrown away!

It was the Gucci shoes I often thought of in later years. Who would buy something that expensive and throw it away? This was the tip, remember, not a charity shop. I couldn't comprehend that kind of waste. I've been on a week's holiday for less than the cost of those shoes.

I thought of them again when I was checking out a resale site I'd never heard of before, and came across the following:

Fifteen thousand pounds! For a skateboard!!! Who even are these people?! 

Truly, the inequity in our society is exemplified by what we can afford to discard.