In message , at 15:24:56 on Sun, 7 Sep
2014, tim..... remarked:
never disposes of material things until they have worn out

...

It's the list of things that I do that the press regularly complains
that people don't do that wastes energy

How strictly is "dispose of" correlated with "throw away"?

I was just making the point that I don't:

wear something once and never again

or replace electrical goods because they aren't the latest colour,

or even because they don't have the most recent number on the front

It's also possible to sell things, freecycle/eBay/Gumtree, give to
friends/relatives/neighbours/Oxfam and so on.

I know, but that isn't always a useful disposal, and if the person who
buys it is only going to wear it once and than they throw it away, it
hasn't solved the problem

Ah, perhaps when you said "material" you mainly meant "clothing" rather
than "tangible".

Does a PC that'll only run Windows XP now qualify as "worn out",

I don't know.

I've never got a PC to last longer than about 4 years without "blowing
up" in some way.

Gosh. My laptop is over four years old and I still regard it as "new".
My desktop PC is coming up for ten years old and the only real problem
with it is the XP [I have upgraded its HDD capacity though].
--
Roland Perry