January 12, 2011

Play It Again…and Again

by: Taz Loomans

2 Comments

I’ve been in the middle of reshuffling my office, making it more comfortable so I will actually work in there.  Up until now, the office has really been a magnet for random storage.  It also housed our workout equipment, including our elliptical trainer.  Today, we successfully resold our elliptical trainer to a buyer for Play It Again Sports, who saw our ad on craigslist.  Play It Again will in turn resell it to somebody out there who’s made a new years resolution to exercise more this year.

When my husband Paul and I were first engaged, we were looking for ways to stay fit and we bought a set of weights from Play it Again Sports.  Today, we inadvertently sold these same weights right back to Play it Again.  With our gym memberships, these weights were just that, dead weight in the office.

The point behind this story is how easy it is to take from and give back to the existing stream of goods already in circulation in the world today.  For example, just this morning, I sourced a used recliner for my client Diane from My Sister’s Attic, a furniture consignment store.  With craigslist and the abundance of consignment and thrift stores, there really is no reason to throw any durable item into the landfill.  Instead, you could sell it on craigslist, consign it, or give it to Goodwill.  And there are more and more reasons to buy used instead of new, something I’ve espoused before.  These options make it easy to redesign and refurnish your home without feeling guilty. Reselling or giving things away and buying used is a great way to opt out of the unsustainable Story of Stuff.  Selling back our weights to Play it Again Sports isn’t quite a Cradle to Cradle transaction, but at least it’s a step towards it.

Image credit:  Image from the video the Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard from Conducive Chronicle.

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2 Responses

  1. Quinn W says:

    Hey again Taz! I’m all for these ideas you write about here. I just moved back from LA where I had built up quite a furniture menagerie for a tiny little studio. But I had purchased everything on Craigslist, meeting the most interesting people who were about to embark on new journeys. At the end of my time I, too, resold my furniture on craigslist again meeting the most amazing people about to start their home creation journeys. I was able to rid myself of objects I no longer needed to people who did. Craigslist has been my only way to go in that buy/sell sense…it’s always an adventure!

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