Scaling down is a huge concept in green living. It’s hard to be earth-friendly when your home is overstuffed to the max with extra goods that consume time, energy, and other resources. Plus the more stuff you have, the more space you need, and a smaller living space, with a smaller footprint is always greener than a large home built just to hold stuff.
All that said, this week, one of the topics we’ll be looking at is scaling down.
The first step in scaling down is to recognize the items you actually use and need in your home, the items that hold real sentimental value, and the items in your home by default (i.e. the stuff you don’t need). Stuff you don’t need in your home may include…
Broken equipment or equipment you’ve replaced. For example, you buy a new DVD player, but keep the old one around anyhow, even though you don’t use it.
Duplicate items or items that do something that another item can do just as well. Examples of this might include the eight soup pans you have (are you ever going to use eight pots at once?) or having a blender, food processor, and a food grinder when in reality one machine will work for most tasks.
Collections of stuff. It’s not bad to collect something. Even two or three collections aren’t going to weight your home down too much, but no one needs to collect ten plus different ceramic animals.
Clothes that no longer fit, and that you know never will (think jeans you had as a teen). Ripped and stained clothing that cannot be fixed is also an issue.
Piles and piles of magazines, newspapers, or books that you’ll never get around to reading – or that you’ve already read and won’t read again.
Items you never ever use – ski equipment, that sewing machine, oddball craft materials, and bizarre kitchen appliances all create unnecessary clutter.
Items you got for free so you’re compelled to keep them.
What to do:
Start slow. Begin going through one room of your house each week. Fill a box or two with items that are simply cluttering up your space. Once you make it through your entire house, go through again with a new empty box to fill – trust me, you miss stuff the first go around.
The second part of your plan should be to NOT bring new junk into your house. If you’re consistently scaling down, it doesn’t make much sense to bring new junk in.
The end result will be a less cluttered house, extra space, and the possibility of a downsize. It’s a very green choice to downsize to a smaller living space, but you’ll never be able to do this if too much stuff is in your way.
Coming up: more downsizing issues (among other things).