Everything and the Kitchen Sink

Guest Opinion

By Cathye Williams | Sept. 14, 2024

Is there a spot where you do your best thinking? Mine’s the kitchen sink. I spend a lot of time in this rather mundane spot. Mostly it’s mindless—prepping food, washing dishes, fetching a drink of water. It’s the kind of place where you can focus on a task, or let your mind drift. For whatever reason, this is where I often find myself lost in thought, standing at the sink, staring out the window.

Lately, though, spending so much time at the sink is vexing me. Why? Because I’m starting to think I want a new sink. Twenty years on, my sink still does all the things you want a sink to do. Nothing leaks or drips. Clean water comes out the tap, and stuff you don’t want goes down the drain, no problem. So why this pressing urge? What is driving me to the plumbing aisle, checking out the fancy faucets? Why am I googling “DIY sink” and “reverse osmosis”?

Sure, it may be getting dull and scratched in a few places, but this sink is just fine. Even if one day it stopped being fine, I'm confident that a call to my brother-in-law and some $5 doodad from the hardware would make it fine again. Yet here I am, contemplating tossing it out.

What brings people to this juncture? Some blame a system that thrives on consumer demand for shiny new things. The people who profit from pumping out more goods have a whole lineup of tricks, otherwise known as marketing.

Take music. My local grocery favors classic rock. I’m sure that’s not random, but certainly tied to research that shows grocery receipts go up when Journey and Fleetwood Mac tunes are wafting through the frozen foods. Does the music make us feel nostalgic, or hungry? Who knows? But after bopping and buying to Bob Seger too many times, I’ve started listening to podcasts while I shop.

Another ploy is the deals. Most of us know that the point of every “deal” is to 1) get you to buy something and 2) get you to buy more. We know this, yet we can’t seem to help ourselves. You can defend against this by asking one simple question: “Will I use it?” If you can answer yes, then grab that coupon and head to the checkout. You’re doing better just by taking the time to ask.

To me, however, the most irksome of all is when corporate marketing strategists convince us that something we have is “outdated”. You name it—clothes, appliances, cars—practically everything, including the kitchen sink. All our “things” lose their appeal long before they lose their usefulness. Why? Because someone tells us our things are no longer appealing. Then they give us new things to look at. Then they do a bunch of surveys, control studies, and focus groups to prove how appealing the new things are.

Maybe the only thing “outdated” here is this system itself. Continuously making more stuff without reflecting on the cost isn’t working anymore. Just consider the volume of waste we are piling up and the sad fact that, even with all the waste, there are still people who don’t have the basics needed to live, much less the latest upgrade. We can do better.

I could do better by keeping that darn sink another five years. Heck, maybe another 20. How much energy and materials could be conserved if I did? I venture if I figured out how much, it would lessen the appeal of a sexy new sink. We can mitigate a great deal of harm just by keeping things a little longer.

That’s not to say that style, form, and beauty shouldn’t matter in our lives, but how much they matter, and who controls when and how they matter, is concerning. The desire for “the latest” dogs us, whether we can afford it or not.

If you struggle with this, and let’s be honest, who doesn’t, maybe skip over that Vogue or House Beautiful, and grab a nice nature magazine instead. Block or turn off ads, and delete searches as much as possible. Inordinate amounts of money go towards steering our purchase decisions because it works.

Being aware of the real cost of what we buy, and the forces influencing us, helps. We can also learn what the dreamers, designers, and manufacturers are doing to reduce the pollution and waste that come from having our favorite things. We can advocate for policies that support sustainability in every sector.

So, my sink and I are fine. I no longer haunt the plumbing aisle. I can admire a kitchen makeover without coveting anything. Maybe my next sink will be House Beautiful material, and a little easier on the planet too.

Cathye Williams is a local climate activist. She writes from the northern corner of Manistee County.