War on Junk - Day 23 A Trip to the Dump

Huge junk invasion over the weekend. New TV and home theatre system resulted in a massive pile of cardboard boxes, styrofoam and other packing materials. It required the junk war nuclear option - a trip to the dump. The dump is no longer called a dump, it's called a transfer station. For the privelege of driving to the dump and unloading our garbage, we get to pay a fee. In addition, garbage goes to one location, paints and metals to another and recyclables to a third. They are all in proximity but it seems that the process could be streamlined. For example, to get rid of the paint, you can drive directly to the paint station from within the garbage facility. The collectors were there but wouldn't accept your paint cans until you drove out of the facility, back onto the steet and then turned back into the same facility ten yards down the road where you were met by the same collectors at the same station who would now accept your paint. Not quite sure why we had to do it that way but we did.

What we got rid of today:

1. A cardboard box from the TV
2. Styrofoam from the packing crate
3. Multiple boxes and cardboard inserts from the home theatre packing crate
4. ANother cardboard box
5. A lenght of copper pipe
6. A rotten 2x4
7. A small piece of plywood
8. A drawer from an old piece of furniture
9. A 5 gallon paint container
10. A large ceramic tile

War on Junk - Day 20

Two hundred pieces of junk down! The holidays have been distracting - so many better things to do than look for junk, but I must remain vigilant because new pieces of junk creep in daily. It takes about a hundred items to fill the tote.

Today's list:

1. An American Eagle Sweater
2 and 3. A pair of Swazi candles made in Africa
4. A bundle of tubes
5. A defunct lighter
6. An Ikea attaching device
7. A fridge magnet
8. A Dustbuster attachment
9. A plastic vial
10. A paint brush

War on Junk - Day 18

One of the side benefits of declaring war on junk is that in the 5 minutes I spend selecting the days 10 pieces, I will occaisonally come across something useful. Like today I found my Nikon Coolpix 4500 Guide. I have been looking for it for a couple of years! That's one of the insidious things about junk - it obscures the useful.

Today's Junkorama

1. A Japanese fan box - empty
2. A box containing lacquered paper bows
3. A Kenwood Portable CD player
4. An empty film canister
5. A charging device for something
6. A booklet - Growing Children: A Parent's Guide
7. A bag containing coin tubes.
8. A set of Sony headphones
9. A cord for a computer or printer
10. A plastic round box top

War on Junk - Day 16

Today I emptied the turquoise tote, which was full to the brim. We are now 150 items lighter in the junk department. Another wave of junk is about to come ashore however so we will start to re-fill the tote.

Junk Menu for Today:

1. An unexposed role of Kodak 200 ASA film. Kodak couldn't dodge the digital bullet.
2. A car cell phone charger
3. An ex-mouse
4. A battery charger unsued for many years
5. A plastic electronic device
6. Nick Manoloff's Spanish Guitar Method instructional book- copyright 1935
7. A congratulation for for being Today's Sparkler given to our eldest son in elementary school
8. A drawing of a snowman by one of our kids
9. CD stomper Jewel case insert set
10. A charger for an unknown electronic device

War on Junk - Day 14

The banality of this blog is starting to annoy me. Seeking out mundane and useless objects is not as much fun as say - looking for lost treasure. In fact this is pretty much the opposite. We'll see how long I can keep it up.

Junk du jour:

1. A flyer from the municipality
2. A hand-made birthday card
3. A tourist's map of Vancouver
4. The handle to a Schick razor
5. A plastic top for a round container
6. A set of unknown keys on a ring
7. A moustache comb
8. A cleaning brush for a non-existant electric razor
9. A plastic tweezer
10. A nail file

War On Junk - Day 13

A large bolt of fabric showed up in the junk tote. By volume it takes up a lot of space. Then there is the usual culling from various drawers around the house'

Todays' Junk:

1. A bolt of fabric
2. Two obsolete keys on a ring
3. Another obsolete key
4. An eraser
5. An orange peeler (I think we can live without this)
6. A strawberry huller
7. A plastic gizmo
8. A Radio Shack Enercell AA battery
9. A chrome bolt with a washer for something very specific - don't know what!
10. A plastic bag with 2 pennies, a nickel and a US dime.

War on Junk - Day 10 - A Christmas Special!

Day 10 - One hundred pieces of junk consigned to banishment! It hasn't even made a dent in the chaos, but it does feel good. It was Christmas tree time on the weekend and like every other year, a string of lights no longer works. When I was a child we had the screw in, flame-shaped, multi-coloured lights. If one of them went out, you could replace it. Today's miniature, cheap little twinkly lights are garbage as soon as one light goes out. On my website for Rare and Precious.com, I have a gallery dedicated to the well-made object, items I have owned for decades that are still useful and functional. http://www.rareandprecious.com/

Todays Christmas list.

1. Miniature artificial tree
2. A string of christmas lights
3. A wreath of twigs
4. A cluster of fake cherries
5. A blue glass globe ornament
6. A pink glass globe ornament
7. A red glass globe ornament
8. A white and gold christmas tree ornament
9. A round white plastic attachment for a massage tool
10. Two more of the above

Strictly speaking that's 11 items - we'll call it a Christmas bonus.

War on Junk - Day 9

I have mentioned this project to a few people and it seems to have struck a nerve. Upon hearing that I am eliminating 10 pieces of junk a day some have said "I'm going to do that!" We could call ourselves the junkinistas. Any way, I got rid of some bulky junk today.

Here is the list:

1. A CD for a Samsung computer?
2. Cardboard box for my Blackberry World Edition
3. Cardboard box for the Nikon Macro Cool-Light SL-1
4. Nikon Guide de demarrage rapide for the Coolpix 4500
5. Nikon French Instruction manualfor the Coolpix 4500
6. Nikon multi lingual instruction manual for the Rechargeable Li-ion Battery
7. A plastic black felt tip pen
8. A broken zipper pull.
9. A Nikon Quick start guide for the Coolpix 4500
10. A cork stopper from a Martell Cognac

Ironically, the one thing I really need of all the Nikon stuff is the English instruction manual for my Coolpix 4500 and it is nowhere to be found. I did find some useful accessories for my Blackberry that I didn't know I had - like a car charger and some earphones. The war on junk is having some useful side effects. Who knows what else I will discover once the junk is out of the way?

War on Junk - Day 4

I've mentioned my war on junk to a couple of people. They seem to agree that the proliferation of stuff is a common problem. It's not like we are not constantly getting rid of garbage and recycling and giving things away. We are. It's just not enough and a large part of the problem is the manufacturing of junk disguised as useful items. For example electronic converters. We must have 10 obsolete converters because each one has a different plug and will only fit a specific device. Standardize the converters.

Today's haul:

1. A floppy disc
2. A key fob with two compasses
3. A triple-header hiliter from the Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company
4. A converter
5. A paper mache vase made by one of our children 10 years ago
6. A bicycle lock key
7. A magnifying top to a plastic box
8. A plastic bullet
9. A plastic plug for something
10. A cigar journal

I don't think I'll need to look outside my home office for quite a while. there is a lot of junk here!

I Declare War on Junk!

The Lee Homer Household declares War on Junk!

Ok, so here's the deal. We have too much stuff. A lot of it is garbage masquerading as something you might use someday or hiding among useful items. Much of it has been there for years, malevolently cluttering up our lives in a sneaky manner. Hey, - I'm not doing anything, I'm just a piece of junk sitting in your closet that you are never going to use - what's the harm? Or Hey, we're just a bunch of useless items festering in your drawers and getting in the way of finding the few things we actually need and use.

Well it's no more Mr. and Mrs. Nice Guy. Our family is declaring war on junk. It's either us or the junk and at this point the junk is getting the upper hand!

Today is day one and our goal is to get rid of 10 pieces of junk per day. There is so much of it that at this point it takes less than 5 minutes to identify offending detritus.

Once identified they will be placed in a holding area (a superfluous tote) and once a week be sorted into 3 piles:

1. Garbage - unredeemable junk
2. Recyclable
3. Stuff to give away.

If we do this for a year, we will have eliminated 3,650 useless items from our lives and be all the better for it.

Today's haul:

1. Old baseball glove
2. Old 3 ring binder
3. metal pen box
4. Obsolete Name Tag
5. Plastic bag of Screws
6. Unidentified plastic thingamabob
7. Another unidentified plastic thingamabob
8. Another unidentified plastic thingamabob
9. 3 Christmas lights
10. Canuck's Rubik's cube
Labels: de-clutter, junk, recycling