Duncan Stephen

For at least the past 18 years, I have kept the plastic wrappers of the CDs and records I have bought. (Not all of them, but the ones with special stickers on them.) Now I’m getting rid of them.

I’m not entirely sure why I started collecting them. Probably a mixture of liking some of them, and thinking that keeping them would make my CD collection more valuable.

Of course, CD collections are worth almost nothing, and this is probably not enhanced by keeping the plastic wrappers if they have been opened.

Since returning from our honeymoon (which I will write much more about in the coming weeks), we have spent a lot of our time clearing out our flat. Anything that doesn’t spark joy: gone.

This time, I knew it was probably time to get rid of the plastic wrappers.

Despite having collected them for at least 18 years (which means I have hundreds of them), they take up very little space — happily occupying a little A4 box file. But it just feels weird. It’s a strange hobby hungover from my teenage years. And it means every time I open a new CD or record with a special sticker on it, I have to take time and care to open the plastic carefully to preserve it, instead of just quickly ripping it open.

Now they are in the bin. Even though I have thought for a few years now I needed to stop this habit, I did feel a bit strange as I looked through some of them. I wonder how many people have kept these in the world? Am I doing the wrong thing by getting rid?

Some of them contain potentially useful information, like the sticker that fully outlines the contents of the DVD it wrapped around. Presumably, therefore, the contents are not on the box. The fact that I haven’t even gone and checked the DVD box is possibly a clue that one day I should get rid of the DVDs…

Getting rid of these plastic wrappers will save almost no space. (We’re keeping the box, but don’t know what we’ll keep in it yet.) But it will save me time whenever I open a new CD. Plus, it’s all about the principle of not hanging onto things you don’t need. Right?

• Packaging design
• Plastic
• CDs
• Tidying