Or maybe when they stop wanting to keep it they just chuck it all in landfill and forget about it.
Judging by the stuff I see thrown out by my neighbours, it is in at least a significant quantity of cases this. (I often have to resist rescuing things that are eminently fixable, because I have enough stuff to get rid of myself without burdening myself with other people's belongings that I don't need... but it saddens me.) Another potential answer: people acquire stuff they don't need and then just hang onto it. The huge market in self-storage might support this interpretation.
sometimes it does feel as though I'm just always whittling away and trying to reduce myself to nothing
Curiously, I tend to feel almost exactly the opposite about decluttering: that by getting rid of the *stuff* I have more space for myself to expand into. It's the possessions (to an extent) that feel like they're squashing me into nothing.
I got more militant about this after the time I spent in Aus, where I really didn't have very much stuff at all for 10 months, & I mostly didn't miss it. Unfortunately, the awareness that, for example, I got by *just fine* with 8 tops & a couple each of skirts/pairs of trousers does not translate directly into an ability to make any serious dent in the slightly larger than that (cough) quantity of clothing (or of anything else) that I currently possess. (8 tops was admittedly slightly too few; I was pretty bored of them by the time I got back.)
On the subject of recycling: you (or anyone reading) don't by any chance know of any recycling solution for VHS tapes? Charity shop doesn't want 'em, Freecycle doesn't want 'em, council doesn't take them, & I'm loathe to put them all in landfill :/
no subject
Judging by the stuff I see thrown out by my neighbours, it is in at least a significant quantity of cases this. (I often have to resist rescuing things that are eminently fixable, because I have enough stuff to get rid of myself without burdening myself with other people's belongings that I don't need... but it saddens me.) Another potential answer: people acquire stuff they don't need and then just hang onto it. The huge market in self-storage might support this interpretation.
sometimes it does feel as though I'm just always whittling away and trying to reduce myself to nothing
Curiously, I tend to feel almost exactly the opposite about decluttering: that by getting rid of the *stuff* I have more space for myself to expand into. It's the possessions (to an extent) that feel like they're squashing me into nothing.
I got more militant about this after the time I spent in Aus, where I really didn't have very much stuff at all for 10 months, & I mostly didn't miss it. Unfortunately, the awareness that, for example, I got by *just fine* with 8 tops & a couple each of skirts/pairs of trousers does not translate directly into an ability to make any serious dent in the slightly larger than that (cough) quantity of clothing (or of anything else) that I currently possess. (8 tops was admittedly slightly too few; I was pretty bored of them by the time I got back.)
On the subject of recycling: you (or anyone reading) don't by any chance know of any recycling solution for VHS tapes? Charity shop doesn't want 'em, Freecycle doesn't want 'em, council doesn't take them, & I'm loathe to put them all in landfill :/