What type of hobbies do you have?

[heavyhorse]

There's a difference between stuff accumulating, and hoarding; the image above crosses the line.  The stuff in the piles has become useless and inaccessible; keeping stuff only serves a purpose if you can get to it.  Many projects would be impossible if you had to buy every damn part at retail and every bit of steel at $12 a foot.  If you could even buy it; the steel you buy is often grade 2 or 3.  The shaft from a hydraulic cylinder is somewhere above grade 14, if you could apply grades to it; I know I had to re-sharpen a drill bit every 1/4 inch to drill through one to make a part for a tractor (that you can't buy the part for anymore, and the original part didn't hold up anyway).  Most farms have piles (in areas inaccessible to the animals) as a resource.




I learned long ago, "don't look at stuff for what it is, look at it for what it can be (what it's made of)".   You can buy consumer goods for a fraction of what it would cost you to buy the parts it's made of.  Often for less than the cost of just one part if you had to go out and buy it or have it fabricated.




And yes, I certainly recycle.  I don't chuck crap in gullies (with the possible exception of "organics"; the Game and Fish guy told me to "shoot it and chuck it" re: predator control).  But since the Great Recession stuff is harder to recycle, prices are too low.  So the true junk builds up some.  For now.