I must admit that I’m a bit of a hoarder (ask my parents & my wife!) and I hate to throw anything away. This is a bit of a family trait to be honest. My Grandparents were all born in the early part of the 20th Century and were never what you’d call ‘rich’. My parents were born during the Second World War and then lived during the years of austerity following the War and all of this has rubbed off on me.
I never like to throw things away ‘just in case’ they may be useful in the future.
Today, I went for a meeting at my School’s other site (we have 2 six miles apart) and in the room noticed that there were three laser printers in the room. I joked to my colleague that he was starting his own private collection! In fact two of the printers were broken and were about to be thrown away.
As one of them is the same as a model I have at my site, I asked about taking it with me and as it was only going to be chucked, this was not a problem (my colleague had tried to have it repaired, but it’s a bit old, so the parts weren’t available).
After the meeting, I stripped it down and was able to repair two similar printers that had minor physical damage. So although we had to dispose of one printer, I was able to repair the damage and ensure the printers have a much longer life.
If all things were so easy to repair!
This comes under the part of the Scout Law that says that ‘A Scout Makes Good Use of time and is Careful of Possessions and Property’ and I guess it falls in the BSA’s Scout Law as ‘Thrifty’ .
If only more people were able to follow this simple rule, then there would be a lot less waste in the world!
Good call, and yes, that would fall under ‘Thrifty’… 😉