Waste Reduction

everyday life 1 Minute

This was a small thing, but I am very proud of it.

Sometimes, things break, or you lose a part, and then it appears to be very difficult to find this one small part that you need to replace, and it is very tempting to replace the whole thing.

Recently, I accidentally threw a percolator tube into the garbage. And I didn’t realize I did it until it was too late, and the garbage was already in the dumpster. I started to look for a part on Amazon, and I couldn’t find it. A couple of years ago, I had to buy a new percolator for Milwaukee when the lid of the coffee basket went missing, and I could not find a replacement for such a simple thing and ended up ordering a new percolator.

This time, I was almost ready to do the same, but when I checked the percolator’s price on Amazon, I saw that it had gone up almost twice since I purchased it last time. Most likely, that won’t stop me because I wanted the problem to be solved ASAP, but then I thought about the conservation efforts and what a waste it would be to throw away the whole percolator with only this tube missing!

I made an effort :). I found the company website and ordered the replacement perk tubes. Two of them :). Because it’s not the last time I need one. And it was not as fast as Amazon delivery. And two tubes plus shipping cost only a little bit less than a new percolator. But I was so happy I did the right thing 🙂

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Published by Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

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2 thoughts on “Waste Reduction”

  1. Hi Hettie, eBay is also a useful resource, people often sell used/new stuff and if you need just part of it, it’ll solve the problem. I buy/sell used stuff as much as I can for the same reason. Why create a new if we can reuse already exist? Of course, it’s my personal opinion and I am not implying everyone has to do the same!

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    1. I agree that that’s a good idea in general. In this case, it was critical that this part would be factory-new. It might develop one very small defect, and I had it with one of my other percolators, which is almost invisible unless you put the good one and defected one side by side.

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