Debate: Do we want staying power in our throwaway culture?

A NEW website promising to stock products which are “built to last” launches this week.

Buymeonce.com sells items ranging from clothes to kitchenware to tools, all of which they say are more durable than other items on the market.

A pair of socks on buymeonce.com can cost upwards of £15 – but come with a lifetime guarantee.

Two Sunday Post writers have different opinions on whether products build to last are the way forward…

‘Yes, things should be bought to last’ – Stevie Gallacher 

IN a world where dirt-cheap clothing chains exist, it seems almost perverse to splash out £15 on a pair of socks.

Fifteen pounds? For that money you could leave Primark with a quantity of clothes so massive as to require the Berlin Airlift to get it up the road.

It’s because High Street clobber is incredibly cheap these days.

So why go to buymeonce.com when eBay shops stock T-shirts that’ll set you back the equivalent of a coffee and a roll and square sausage?

Well it’s just like your granny might have said – buy cheap, buy twice.

That saying is meant to remind you that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Recently I bought a pair of trousers for a wedding.

Did they burst the bank? No. Did they burst at the crotch seam? Yes.

I’d barely gotten my twerk on before my shiny new breeks disintegrated. For a moment I thought I’d accidentally bought those Chippendale-style velcro trousers which can be whipped off at the climax of You Can Leave Your Hat On.

Since then I’ve decided to heed granny’s words – and not just for clothes.

It’s telling that things like tools on buymeonce.com come with a lifetime guarantee.

How quaint it seems.

But the things we used to buy didn’t always need to come with a lifetime guarantee, mainly because they just tended to last for ages.

My dad still has most of the tools I remember him pottering about with back in the early ’80s, and they looked old even then.

Meanwhile a modern screwdriver set bought from Amazon for a couple of quid might as well come with a Best Before date, like it’s a tub of Greek yoghurt.

Everything’s disposable now because it’s made using some Kraft cheese slices and bits of old string by a worker in a city-factory in China.

I’m fairly certain they’d be happier making one good product which costs a decent amount of money in return for a fair wage rather than having to churn out a gazillion of them in the course of their 19-hour working day.

And companies – especially technology ones – stand accused of engineering your phone or tablet to basically become useless after a set length of time, meaning you need to upgrade or be denied Netflix and access to your online banking.

This practice even has a name – planned obsolescence.

Maybe these products should by law come with a “Cinderella Warning” so people realise the fancy tablet they’re buying is only fabulous until the clock strikes midnight on a certain date, upon which it turns into a £600 brick.

There are laws guaranteeing products last a certain amount of time.

Then again it might be a bit cheeky for the UK Government to try to enforce that one.

After all, they themselves have only lasted two years out of their promised five. Does nothing last?

 

‘No, I like buying shiny new things’ – Ali Kirker 

WHEN I was walking home from work last week, I realised I had a hole in the toe of my tights. And girls, we all know how annoying that is. You too, men, if that’s your thing.

I’d only had them on once.

“Darn it,” I thought. Literally.

Bearing in mind I was going to be writing about buymeonce.com, I decided to try mending my tights instead of binning them and wasting a whole £4.

My nana would have been proud.

I got home. Hunted for a needle. All I’m going to say is needle, haystack etc.

Then I had to find thread. And, no, it wasn’t in the same place as the needle.

What a palaver.

It took me a good three minutes to thread the needle. Look, my eyesight isn’t 20-20 vision these days. Old age doesn’t visit alone.

Then I finally darned the tights. Only to put them on after washing them and realise the darned bit was completely uncomfortable. It caused a blister.

I binned them.

I know it makes me sound fickle, super-ficial and altogether flighty, but I like new, shiny things.

I love going shopping and treating myself to something sparkly and new. It gives me a wee lift when I’m having a rubbish day.

And if I order something online, in a way it’s even better.

I’ve then get the joy of a nicely-wrapped parcel to look forward to when I get home.

I really don’t want my socks to last forever. Does anyone?

I want new, fluffy socks on a regular basis. They’re one of the small joys of life. Although maybe that makes me sound like I could do with discovering some more exciting pleasures.

A wee browse on buymeonce.com hasn’t convinced me it’s my new favourite website.

It’s £34 for a plain, white T-shirt.

I know it’s made to last until I’m 108, but what if I put it in the wash with a black shirt by mistake?

Is it really going to stay white, or is it going to end up a bit grey and grubby?

A black dress is £204. I know me. I’m going to get fed up of it and find it in a heap on my wardrobe floor after a dozen outings in it.

You won’t get much change from £20 for a pair of socks. I know. I sound obsessed by socks. But come on – £20!

Let’s not forget the joy of getting a bargain, either.

Is there any greater feeling than getting that bag you’ve coveted for half price?

No. There is not.

We’re always hearing politicians droning on about the state of the economy.

Thanks to me and my noble shopping habit, it’s not quite as bad as it might be.

I bet my new sock habit is helping to keep an M&S employee in a job.

And before you all start emailing me about the impact I’m having on the environment, I’m an ace recycler.

I regularly put clothes that are still in good nick into charity shops.

Not socks, though. That would be a step too far.