I just threw away a coffee maker that still worked perfectly fine. The old one was white but coffee had stained the parts beyond the effects of bleach. Also, the burner part was rusty and had permanently coloured the bottom of the glass carafe. So, it hit the dumpster and I drove to Walmart for a cheap replacement. In fact, the new, black one cost less than a single week of takeout brew at a Starbucks.Yet, I sometimes get angry at how wasteful we are. (I'm getting up on a rickety-old soapbox.) I remember the time when people used to fix stuff that broke rather than adding to the landfill. As a kid, I remember my father visiting a guy in Newport, NH when our TV didn't work right. Okay, we're probably talking about equipment with vacuum tubes, but still the first inclination wasn't to toss out something broken.
I imagine as a percentage of salary, consumer items weren't as cheap as today. Poorly-paid Chinese workers can churn out crap for the entire world, so it's easier and faster to simply replace. I'm sure I've said the same things here in my eJournal and images in the past if one searches for vacuum cleaner or microwave oven. It's just that every time I replace something, I wince. This could be attributed to either my age, or the fact I grew up in New England where being frugal is a virtue.