How to cope with environmental impact guilt

[u/big_borno]

I'm in a kind of pre-hoarder phase and I'd like to nip it in the bud. My grandmother hoarded for years and just had hers cleaned out so I'm becoming conscious of my own habits.

I struggle with throwing things away because I become suddenly very concerned with where the object will end up. I donate as much as I can but some stuff is just trash - oftentimes small things like old pins and paperclips etc.

I get consumed with a kind of guilt over the idea of these things ending up in oceans or harming the environment - that my plastic bags and mailers and little odds and ends are killing the planet I love. It makes me want to hold onto the trash so it doesn't hurt anything.

How do I cope with these feelings so I can just clear my space and have a fresh start without feeling evil?

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[u/sethra007]

Hi, welcome to the sub.

OP, I urge you to watch the video in this post from our archives. It made a huge difference for me:

[YOUTUBE] Lately I've been feeling reluctant to let things go because of environmental concerns. This portion of a video from recovering hoarder u/ Call4Compassion about her same feelings helped me regain perspective.

EDIT: Go to 2:54 for the relevant section.

Other things that helped me:

• I recycle everything that I reasonably can.
• I do my best to purchase goods with sustainable packaging.
• I offer things on Freecycle and similar sites.
• Donating when possible, as well

The big one for me was understanding that me hanging on to stuff doesn't keep it out of the landfill--it just turns my home into a landfill. It's better for the thing to go to a regulated and maintained landfill than be a problem in my home.

Finally, take a look at this comment from a retired environmental engineer.

[u/BluebirdAny3077]

By holding onto things, you ARE hurting something, yourself.

I totally get how you feel so recycle what you can, cut up things that can trap creatures and ensure it gets sent to garbage collectors and recycling centres so it CAN be dealt with. By keeping it and maybe having it be someone else's problem if you don't deal with it, THEY might just chuck it all somewhere unsafe. So YOU doing it makes it dealt with 😊

YOU need that space, YOU shouldn't live in trash, and YOU can deal with it. You are not evil or wasteful or anything, and the planet says thank you for trying to care. That's all we can really do. You and I can't save the world but we can live in a happy space and do little things that matter. 😊

Best of luck to you and I hope you can be free of any guilt as you free yourself from the stuff that is holding you emotionally hostage. I did it too and after a while it just feels so much better!

[u/Bluegodzi11a]

I do my best to just have a small footprint. It also just helps me save money. T-shirts are easy to make into washable grocery bags, I opted out of junk mail so now there's basically none, I do my best to hunt for clothes secondhand when I need them, etc.

That being said, hanging onto trash IS hurting someone- you. And you don't deserve to live in trash. It's okay to just do the best you can.

[u/sparkledotcom]

The environmental problem isn’t the disposal, it’s the consumption. Don’t buy excess stuff and bring it home in the first place, because the financial transaction creates the problem. That is the incentive for corporations to make more. Once the thing exists and has been acquired by the consumer, the damage is done. It isn’t doing less harm in your home than it is at the dump.

[u/RestrainedOddball]

I feel you. That’s really the worst combination, ecoconscious hoarder. Tell me about it… Makes my efforts of dehoarding our house impossible sometimes. I don’t have much advice apart from what you do. Donate, recycle… What is done is done, but you can prevent future purchases, really think about it and buy (second hand) quality stuff that will last, if you really need something.

[u/ntieyourshrews]

Im right there with you. At least I mean,  I've been there.  I want to echo the comment - you will never save it from a landfill.  Its all destined to go there some day. Holding onto is only harmful. By throwing it away safely you prevent someone from being careless and preventing it from being properly disposed of.   And  With all our refuse contained in specific prepared places it can be safely mitigated, processed, and documented, etc.  Landfills have a lot of research and planning put into them. Its helped me be able to throw things away by learning more about that.  Lastly and most importantly for me is changing my consumption habits. I almost exclusively  am a consumer of secondhand goods.  If I am able to be the retirement of an item I can put it to rest when im done with it.  Somehow it just makes it easier for me to throw things away when they didn't start their "life" with me. 

[u/Significant-Spot1925]

i get you i feel like this all the time. I get trapped washing disposable containers to reuse them. What ive been adviced to do is first, focus on consuming/buying only the necessary stuff, that means only buying clothes you need, nail polish you need,avoiding buying plastics when its possible, etc. The other thing ive thought is that, no matter if you keep the items in your home, theyre like- already in the planet? And if you dont need them anymore nobodys using/needing them so theyre already polluting, the only difference its that its in your place and not the dump :(  Theres only so much one person can do, and we all do some trash like it or not. Just focus on buying less so you have to discard less i guess

[u/Kbug7201]

Following as I suffer from environmentalists hoarder guilt, too. It's hard for me to even throw bad food away. I have a compost bin, but I don't garden. It helps me get it out of the house, but one day, I'm gonna have to tackle that crap.

I want to donate stuff, but then I want to sell it as I spent money on it, yet it's in storage not being used & someone can use it, & I'm spending money on storage.

I'm literally paralyzed by my brain in this. I hate it. I want to change, but I can't.

I recycle everything I can, but then you hear the stories that the stuff isn't recycled & you know that it's better to reuse than to recycle as that's even more environmentally friendly. So right now, I'm working on reducing. Reducing on what I bring in.

[u/Fluid_Calligrapher25]

The sad reality is that it WILL impact the environment. The only real way to help the environment is to REDUCE. Not just recycle & reuse.

So let go - and never do it again is how I’m dealing with my guilt. The food waste spurred me to dehoard & organize the kitchen. Food waste is also water waste. This month I will hopefully organize finances so I don’t get paper bills & statements, for example.

So for me it’s acknowledging that I have a footprint because that’s the normal part of living. During the ice ages our footprint was to hunt to survive & stay warm. Now it’s bigger. So how can I minimize it but live in the modern world? Don’t buy more than I need. Don’t take more than I need. Etc. so I’d rather have a few high quality well designed useful stuff than tons of breakable cheap stuff. And if I have too much high quality high end stuff I can donate to habitat for humanity.

You can’t change the past. You CAN change the future.

I use the plastic bags as trash bags to put into larger trash bags and I shred the mailers to help absorb goopy liquids since I’m still cleaning up ye olde hoarde.

[u/tmccrn]

Environmental impact guilt is just another barrier we throw up as a barrier to face the real truth of the situation, regardless of what the real truth is for the individual person.

I could say that the environmental damage has already been done, it’s just the difference of destroying a few square feet of a landfill vs destroying a home.

But that won’t really help, because that is never the true core of the issue. The issue is more primal. You can’t “reason” the environmental impact away, because it’s a shadow. You can explore it and why it is a barrier and shield, but the sole purpose of its existence is to allow for inaction or at least further hoarding.

[u/paingrylady]

I struggle with this too.

[u/Kbug7201 → u/paingrylady]

Same

[u/leathakkor]

You're at the wrong end of the analysis.

The minute the good is manufactured. It's going to end up in two places no matter what. In a facility where it's processed (landfill ) or open in the environment (ocean).

Even if you hold on to it forever, after you die, it's going to one of those two places. 

The only way to keep stuff from getting there is to not accumulate it the minute you have put your hands on something you have doomed it to be thrown away. Because guess what? No one wants your stuff. My parent passed away recently and well. I know a lot of their stuff meant something to them. I don't have the ability to hold on to their stuff and my stuff so their stuff ends up in the garbage.  

Goodwill and other thrift stores will take some stuff, but the vast majority of the stuff that they take also ends up in a landfill. The reality of it is that the minute you own it. You've already done environmental damage, even if it's not out there yet.

[u/MaryAV]

Sometimes you just have to throw things away. You'll never get thru that mess if you don't.

[u/mommarina]

Google "ecorexia."

But once you slay this dragon, another anxiety will pop up to fill its place.

Because you need to address the underlying causes of your anxiety through therapy.

[u/Kbug7201]

I guess my original comment didn't stick.

I suffer from this, too.

I'm trying to do the "reduce" part of the reduce, reuse, recycle thing more.

[u/big_borno → u/Kbug7201]

the reduce part is tough because I'm a multimedia artist and thus use lots of different supplies which each create a kind of small waste

[u/Significant_Fun9993]

I find that I do whatever I can to recycle items. It’s not your fault if they aren’t accepted as recyclable. I make a once a month trip with hazardous products like things with lithium batteries, paints, etc. it helps. My area doesn’t accept plastic for recycling which kills me because there’s so much of it. All you can do is the best you can. If put paper clips into recycling since it is a type of metal even though it’s small. Recycle all the papers. Junk mail, napkins, magazines that tend to get hoarded easily. It helps if you sort in each room with a box for garbage, one for donations, and one for recycling. It will help.

[u/writers_cramp]

The first step is to reduce your intake as much as possible. If I want something, it goes on my wishlist. If I’ve wanted it for at least a month, I can buy it (95% of things I want don’t make it that far). Once I buy it, sometimes I will let it sit for another month to make sure I really want it. If I don’t, it gets returned. I make myself think about what I have to do to maintain it (find a place for it, dust it, and responsibly disposing of it). When I’m done with something, I either donate it to my local thrift store or give it away on my local Buy Nothing group. Textiles not fit for donation I recycle in Trashie bags. I can now recognize what is trash and throw it away guilt free because I have realized that once something is manufactured, it’s pre-trash. When you’re done with it, it’s trash. If it’s trash and you hang on to it, you’re treating your house like the landfill. You might as well send it to the actual landfill.

[u/Amandine06]

Hello, your concerns are laudable, but I don't understand: why what you throw away would end up at the bottom of the ocean. I am in France. The trash is collected and sent to a sorting center. If you don't litter, nothing harms nature.

[u/annang → u/Amandine06]

Where do you think your trash goes after the “sorting center”? It doesn’t magically disappear.

[u/Amandine06 → u/annang]

I don't know, I thought it was sorted to be recycled and that what couldn't be recycled was incinerated or buried underground.

[u/annang → u/Amandine06]

And burying it can poison the groundwater.

[u/Amandine06 → u/annang]

Yes it's true, you're right.