Sustainability vs Health

We all know the saying, “one person’s trash is another’s persons treasure”, but when it comes to one person’s council clean up, it can be another person’s nightmare.

Considering the weather over Australia’s east coast over the past couple of years, there has been flooding from continual heavy rain, roof damage from storms and wind and high humidity. Furniture from water damaged homes could be left out on the side of the road or in a local council clean-up, if these items were not looked after properly for their lifetime, including being completely dried out within 24-48 hours after a water event, they will likely be contaminated by mould, bacteria and other allergens. If you take that furniture into your home, mould spores can travel and spread throughout your home.

I adored some of my little roadside finds, I had a coffee table, a gorgeous cane corner shelf and some retro cane stools, but since becoming a “Mouldie” I have inspected these items and sadly had to part with them.

I can feel conflicted with these situations, because I am a big advocate for sustainability and try to reuse, repurpose or recycle as much as I can. I now live by some comforting advice from a dear friend, ‘celebrate what you can do, not what you can’t’. And I try to make up for it in other areas of my life by consciously shopping, buying things that are long lasting and using them even when they are ‘out of style’, I rarely buy school 12 pack snacks, I opt for the larger bag and put in reusable containers, we give our boys hand-me-downs to our younger relatives, some have now been worn by 9 Stitt’s! I have a pretty hectic household recycling station under the sink – as well as the council blue and yellow bins, I save batteries to take to Aldi, old shoes to Rebel, old clothes to charity shops and if we venture to the mall we take to H&M with an added bonus of 15% off an item (win win) and I save random items and send to Banish (listed on their website). I’m not sure if I break even, but I will keep trying.

Remember, if you don’t know the history of an item, is it really worth the chance?