Last year I was having a conservation with someone at my job (back in the days when I held full-time employment), and he mentioned that his wife would buy them all new socks and underwear every six months or so and chuck all the old ones. At the time I was rather disturbed: it seemed like an incredible economic and environmental waste to simply chuck clothes, regardless of condition, away twice a year. However, the other night as I was washing some clothes in the sink, I thought that perhaps they had a point. While I certainly can’t imagine buying all new socks and underwear every six months, sometimes I think about all the time, water, and chemicals necessary to satisfactorily scrub a couple of small items every couple of weeks and I have to wonder at a what point is it no longer really worth it. Another place where I have this issue is with the re-use of little plastic bags. I’ve tried a time or two to reuse them, but for the most part it seems more trouble than it’s worth. To get them clean enough that I would feel comfortable putting food in them requires a great deal of water and soap, and at a certain point I’m not sure if it’s worth it for one little bag. For the bag problem, I try to find alternative food storage options, perhaps other more permanent containers that are easier to clean. However, that isn’t really an option when it comes to socks and underwear (at least not in my mind). I don’t really think that there’s one right answer when it comes to disposal versus continual reuse; certainly some approaches are more wasteful than others, but in the end there is probably a gradient depending on personal use and tastes.