no offense to older people in chat, but why do so many older USonians try to overuse appliances or reusable containers with worn out plastic in contact with food?
is this a worldwide issue? my hypothesis was they got introduced to them as wonder materials of the future. even plastic sponges get reused when they clearly have molecule-deep filth in every crevasse
I couldn't tell you but my friends notice it with their parents and it seems to get worse with age like they form an emotional attachment to their non stick pan which leaches a healthy dose of teflon into their food. I think a lot of people are acutely aware that waste is bad ut don't go the extra mile and get non disposable things like glass containers, steel/iron pans, user servicable devices.
I want to keep things for a long time but i make sure to get things that will actually last long. I replaced all my dissolving plastic tupperware with glass because it just makes more sense for longevity. Although it took me a long time to realise my half dissolved, stained sticky plastic containers were probably not good. The worst offenders were the two I had since i moved out, absolutely reeked but I found them hard to get rid of cos we'd been through so much together. Me and my stinky plastic box.
My parents don't seem to horde old rotting shit but they have the opposite problem and generate absurd amounts of waste instead.
@Gorb@hexbear.net my mom is like this abt many things other than teflon (which is good bc the factory fumes caused birth defectd and parkinson's) which she knows fancy chefs complain abt being easy to scratch or overheat
My great uncle had a gas cooker leaking gas into the house. Just walking in the front door you could smell a leak and no matter how many people told him to get it replaced or he'll blow up half the street the answer always was "Well nothings happened yet" and "it still works" he'd then proceed to demonstrate it working while everyone bolted for the front door.
Its brain bending. Like the inanimate object is valued more than life of both themselves and others.
Toxic Midwesterninity and the cult of moralised frugality.