Am I a hoarder?

When Does Reuse Become Hoarding?

Whether it's brilliant ways to reuse your books, or an easy way to reuse wine corks, TreeHugger has seen plenty of craftsy, DIY examples of reuse as a creative way to greener living. But I've been thinking lately that good intentions can lead to bad decisions—more specifically, I've been wondering at what point reuse becomes hoarding.


I should be clear that I am a huge fan of reuse. I think it makes total sense to save your waste jars, bottles, corks and whatever else and try to find creative, fun things to do with them rather than throw them in the trash. But the key is to actually find things to do with them—if they end up sitting in your closet taking up space, then they are not a help but a hindrance.


We've all been there. I have friends who are into canning who can't stand to see a jar get recycled. I have homebrewing friends who have more bottles saved up than they could possibly use in a lifetime. (In my experience, homebrewers tend to create empty bottles almost as fast as they create full ones.) And I have gardening friends whose potting sheds are almost unusable because of the backlog of plant pots, containers, and random nicknacks that might just come in useful one day. I've also had friends who got so into the admittedly awesome Freecycle that they ended up snapping up any and every offer, whether or not they would ever find a use for the item in question.


The problem is not just that these items are in limbo, sitting in storage when they could be put to good use by someone else. I would actually argue that unless an item is actually going to get used, you'd be better off throwing it away - even if that means landfill (as a last resort!) - than let it sit in your cupboards taking up space. Too much stuff weighs us down, it clouds our thinking, and it takes up space that could be used to live a more orderly, efficient, simpler life.


Yes we need to learn to love our stuff, but sometimes love means letting go.

But those little jelly jars are great for the dried herbs from the garden. Those beer bottles - I like the look. Those bottle caps...
Okasy, I'll try to be more selective.

Front Lawns

The Dandelion King

As I’ve told my neighbors, I feel bad about lowering the value of their property. I mean, it isn’t my goal to have a front yard that, by standard reckoning, is unattractive. The unkept look of my lawn is just a byproduct of a conclusion I reached a few years ago: the war on weeds, though not unwinnable, isn’t winnable at a morally acceptable cost.

I hope you’ll agree with me. As the spring lawn-care season unfolds, I’d like to enlist you in the war on the war on weeds. I want you to aspire to make your yard look like my yard...

I soon learned that the carpets of green in suburbia are the product of assiduously applied chemicals. “Pre-emergent” herbicides are laid down more than once in the spring (mixed in with the fertilizer) to sabotage the germination of crabgrass, dandelions and other undesirables. If this fails, post-emergents may be applied en masse. And as the summer wears on, local pockets of resistance can be wiped out with a spray canister of poison.

As I’ve already suggested, my eco-friendly ethos dovetails suspiciously with my laziness. Waging a war on weeds takes more time and energy (or money, if you outsource it) than just mowing the lawn every once in awhile. (I’m not so radical as to oppose lawn mowing, though I recommend push or electric mowers over gas guzzlers.)

I certainly applaud less lazy people who craft eco-friendly carpets of green in labor-intensive ways — researching and implementing elaborate “organic” weed-suppressant strategies. And I have nothing against people who can hire a battalion of weed pullers. But for me, the practical way to have an eco-friendly lawn is to have a weedy lawn.

The first step is for you to look at your neighborhood anew. Next time you see an unblemished expanse of grass, think about the chemicals that probably got dumped in your vicinity to create it. Are you grateful for that?

And next time you see a yardful of sprouting dandelions, note that they look remarkably like things we call “flowers.” And later, when the flowers turn into fluff balls, look closely at one of those fluff balls and ask yourself whether it’s really so unattractive. Meanwhile, absorb the fact that the lawn you’re looking at is doing nothing to harm pets, toddlers or people in general.

His neighbors would cringe at my yard. From a vegetable garden surrounding by fences, native plant islands and a "lawn" of dandelions, moss, plantain, violets.... Hey, I like it!