It’s Decluttering Time again: time to unload my home of accumulated stuff. The longer I live, the more I shop, and inherit, and acquire. It piles up quickly, unnoticeable at first as the newly cleared closets and shelves easily accommodate incoming treasure. Every third or fourth winter though, when the ice and cold keep me in the house for long stretches of time, I start noticing how the stuff starts dripping from every crammed corner. Some folks do an annual Spring Cleaning. But once I begin noticing this excessive acquisition of possessions, even in the harshest, most inconvenient and dismal season, I have to purge the place—pronto—before it can bury me.

At Upstate Shredding in Owego, NY, there were different landscapes everywhere I looked as mountains of sorted junk were being shredded, cleaned and sold to foundries and mills all around the world, to be reprocessed and made into new products. More stuff.

Altered Horizons 34