Do you remember that I started uncluttering my CD/DVD collection last weekend?Well, seems like I've found the flaw in Marie Kondo's book.
Sure enough, I had no problem to decide which ones to keep and which ones had to go. I even found a good home for some of them in my parents' and in my in-laws' homes.
My problems started after I had divided the discs into three different piles: To keep, to give away, and to toss. You just don't want to give self-burnt CDs to a charity.
Problem No. 1: Not all the CDs were in their appropriate jewel cases. So to find the ones I wanted to keep and those to donate, I had to go through all the jewel cases. Argh! It all comes back to you at some point...
Problem Nr. 2: If you haven't lived in Germany for a while, you guys have no idea how complicated to German garbage disposal system is... just throw everything into one single bag and put it into the trash can? No way! Most packaging materials (except paper) go into the yellow trash can, plastic for example. But guess what? The jewel cases are considered packaging materials, but the discs aren't. Which means I had to take all the discs I wanted to get rid of out of their cases. So you could think that the discs can go into the "general" trash can, which is grey over here. No, they shouldn't, because the material as such is considered recycable. So some of the towns here have set up extra CD and DVD collection stations, for example in schools or in the city hall. And guess what? I'm not going to school any more, I don't have kids who go to school, and I need to go to city hall maybe once a year. Do I really want to waste some time and gas to go on a trip to the city hall just to get rid of a bag of CDs?!
The answer was: No...!!!
So I'm still thinking about smuggling that bag into the trash can for packaging materials...
Just the thought of that complicated process of getting rid of the stuff made me stop for a while. A few days, actually. Two piles of jewel cases were sitting on our living room floor until I finally brought myself to tackle them today. It took a while, but finally, the "to toss" jewel cases went to the appropriate trash can, the discs I want to donate are in my "to give away" bag, and the keepers are stored safely as well. Just that relatively small bag with the "to trash" discs is sitting in a corner and grinning at me, waiting impatiently for me to make a decision...
Bottom line: I don't have any problems to decide what to keep and what to throw away. I can discard things I no longer need pretty easily. It's just overwhelmingly difficult to find the right way to get rid of the trash...!
I guess Marie Kondo hadn't thought of that...
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