Today I finished reading Adam Minter's Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale, a fascinating look at how people discard items (clothes, appliances, electronics, furniture, books, and everything else somewhat durable) and how other people sort it and redistribute it via thrift stores or exports. Often times involving repair along the way.

I learned something new. The word "shoddy" (as I have understood it) implies something of low workmanship or poorly done, but in fact it is the technical name of recycled or rag wool, and how it is shredded and spun into new fibers for wool products, blankets in particular. Minter discussed the mills that still produce shoddy blankets. Wikipedia has more on recycled wool.

There was also a lot of discussion of the businesses that have grown to sort the households of elderly family members going to nursing homes or work on estates after they have died. In Japan, for example, the used items get more reverence and are desirable in other nations because they were made in Japan and are durable. People who sort household items in turn sell them to exporters. Clothes and furniture head to the Philippines, Malaysia, and China, electronics go to Africa. In a separate chapter he shows how American electronic waste is desirable in Africa because the items sold here last longer once they're reconditioned or repaired and put into service there.

This evening I put a mailing label on a box that holds my father's old Casio electronic calculator. I myself used it for while, usually for income taxes, but in recent times it is redundant because the calculator on my phone is as reliable. People collect these things and someone in Florida has just paid for this bit of electronic memorabilia. As Minter points out, in the end, it's just stuff, and better to find a home where someone will enjoy it now than have it go in the trash later if the kids don't want it.

Cold weather is headed this way and I've been feeling a bit blue, so this evening I made a point of pampering my tomorrow self by changing the bedding (in the time it took to brew a cup of tea), cleaning the kitchen, and doing a load of laundry. I set up the next jigsaw puzzle to work, and at that point realized that while some objects go (the calculator) it's not like I'm giving away my Dad, and the table I use for puzzles was his dining table.