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General
- Junk is complicated.
- Junk is junk.
- Some junk is actually treasure.
- Junk is highly subjective.
- Junk is a personal decision.
- What is in storage or hasn’t been used for a long time is not necessarily junk.
- Sometimes junk is hard to get rid of because it still seems useful.
- People want new high quality things and not junk.
- Junk outlives people.
Economic & Political
- Stuff depreciates in value
- Although junk is made up of raw materials, those materials have limited economic value, i.e. plastics
- Metals are more valuable.
- “What is valuable?” is partly a political question
- Practically no one is able to devise a completely sustainable waste stream.
- Society largely decides which waste is manageable and how it is managed.
Aesthetics & Productivity
- Different activities can be performed in a clutter-free space one at a time.
- A space with lots of different things happening at once gives easy access to each thing.
- Minimalist philosophy tends to have a “one thing at a time” view on productivity.
- On the other hand, there is a mad scientist aesthetic where there is a significant amount of clutter, but to the genius all is useful because he or she knows how it all works.
- Most people are not at these extremes, but are more normal, accumulating things and clearing out occasionally.
Environmentalism
- Conservation of the environment may be human focused, conserving the planet for human use, but it can also be focused on animals or living organisms generally, i.e biodiversity.
- For example, if a person is concerned about the effect of micro-plastics on different lifeforms, they will generally be more aware of throwing away plastics and will seek alternative materials or waste streams.