Thrift Week 2022, Day Six: Mend It, Don't End It

Coming into the home stretch now on this year's Thrift Week. For my penultimate entry, I present...

Ecofrugal Principle #6: Mend It, Don't End It

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's vision of a futuristic false utopia, all children are subjected to subliminal moral education while they sleep. One of the principles they're taught this way is, "Ending is better than mending." Through this message, the state encourages its subjects to be good consumers and replace all their belongings regularly, at the first sign of wear, rather than repair them. Obviously, Huxley was commenting on what he perceived as a trend in his actual society at the time (1930s Britain), but he didn't know the half of it. If he could see our modern world, where "planned obsolescence" and "fast fashion" are simply accepted as the norm, he'd think all his worst nightmares had come true.

But even in this world, it's possible to opt out. To get off the endless treadmill of working and spending, buying and discarding. Each time you decide to repair something broken or damaged, rather than simply throw it out and buy a new one, you're engaging in a small act of rebellion against the forces of mindless consumption and the environmental degradation that goes with it. You're striking a blow for your economic freedom and also for the health of the planet.

And repairing works more often than you might think. Most people know that you can take your car to the mechanic when something goes wrong, but not everyone would think to reattach a book cover, restring a pair of Roman shades, or take in an oversized waistband. And even those who know it's possible to patch a pair of pants might assume you need serious sewing skills to do it, when in actuality, I can manage it with nothing but a needle and thread and a simple whip-stitch.

Sadly, repairing instead of replacing isn't always possible. Sometimes, you simply can't restore a bricked device or find a tailor willing to shorten the sleeves on an old coat. And even when it's physically possible, it isn't always economically feasible, such as when the cost to resole a pair of boots is more than a whole new pair. 

So, like most of the other principles in my Ecofrugal Manifesto, "mend it, don't end it" is a rule of thumb rather than an absolute dictum. Repairing rather than replacing should be the default choice, the first thing you think of when something breaks. But if a little (or a lot of) investigation reveals that repair is impossible or impractical or both, it's perfectly acceptable to replace, especially if you choose a secondhand item (Ecofrugal Principle #2) as a replacement.