I realise now that when I posted a couple of days ago about being one appliance failure away from blowing out my trash stash, I had some kind of magical belief that if I put the possibility into words, it wouldn't actually happen.

Heh.

Last night, out of the blue, the DVD player took an early retirement. I bought a replacement Philips DVD player/recorder this morning. At least it was cheaper to replace than a washing machine! I don't know of any option for e-waste here in Nelson yet. There have been annual e-waste collection days up in Auckland, but most e-waste in NZ ends up in landfill. The dead DVD player won't actually fit into the kitchen rubbish bin, so I'll banish it to the garage until such time as I graduate to a proper rubbish bag.  I've put the packaging from the new DVD recorder in the garage as well, in case I have to use the 2-year warranty.  Rebecca says this is "hoarding and cheating". I say this is just being prepared and organised, as long as you are only keeping boxes from stuff that is actually still under warranty.  (I only have the boxes from my laptop and the DVD recorder, IIRC). What say you?