It just kills me the way batteries are sold in packs of two or four ,and products that use them, always seem to need three!

Am I the only one that ends up with single batteries all over the place going flat?

over&over

wasteman

Firstly let me apologise for not posting for a while. I’ve been in Sydney. What a metropolis that place is!!

Anyway, I shot the photo above just prior to leaving.

Ten years ago I wrote about the ‘absolutely positively everything shop‘. I wrote that one day, a character by the name of Little Johny Little visited the absolutely positively everything shop to buy some oranges. On this particular day he was informed that there were no more oranges. The planet couldn’t produce them anymore.

So you can imagine how I felt when I was confronted by this sign down at the local grocery store. I was needing some spinach, there wasn’t any, and it wasn’t because the manager of the store had forgotten to order it, or that he hadn’t ordered enough.

Quite simply, the environmental conditions had made it impossible to grow. Spinach today…what tomorrow?

Have you ever stood in the middle of a grocery store and wondered for how long the volume of produce can just keep coming and coming?

I’m not trying to freak people out here…but our poor planet does have a limit to what it can produce, and for how much longer it can continue to do so.

I’m not advocating we stop eating. I’m just saying don’t waste what food we have.

Yesterday I went to a local beach and had a lovely time with a few friends.

Sitting right near us was a small group of young girls. At a guess I’d say they were around 15/16 years old. When they got up to leave, they left behind all of their litter. If I hadn’t  seen it, I would never have believed it. They left behind empty plastic water bottles, cans and a plastic chip packet wrapper.

I called out  and asked whether or not they had left the mess on the beach, and to my utter bewilderment, they denied that it belonged to them.

I noticed as they left to walk away that one of the girls was wanting to say something, however at the last minute, she refrained from saying anything. She would have been conscious that the other girls may have frowned upon her had she spoken up.

What a shame there are people out there who are capable of such ugly, non caring behavior. I was horrified. Luckily this is not something I see everyday.

The photo below is thankfully not the beach I visited. This is a beach in San Diago. Swim anyone?

I sure hope I’m not booring the pants of you talking about fans again, however, I have been following  the progress (or should i say degrees) of one poor fan in particular. You may remember The previous post ‘my question answered‘.

The fan that featured in this post is dying a slow painful death on the street. We sure do live in a disposable society. What are we thinking? Could it be that  by putting ‘stuff’ out on the street it will just miraculously disappear? I don’t think so!  Just ask Antoine Lavoisier. He’ll tell you that nothing ever disappears. It just changes form – more on this (and him) at a later date.

For now, here’s a little photographic essay I’ve put together for you on the life cycle of the modern electric fan.

The weatherman tells us that we are in for some hot weather.

We head down to the local supermarket and buy an electric fan. 

We buy a brand new fan because the one we bought last year was cheap and now it’s broken so we pick it up and just leave it in the street and wait for it to disappear.

Slowly the old fan just gets kicked around on the street and ends up stuck in the middle of a garden bed with the other accumulated litter. And we wait. And we wait. And we wait some more.

what happens next?… you tell me…

And that is the life cycle of the cheap modern electric fan.

over&over

wasteman

It’s early February in Melbourne Australia and the leaves have fallen from the trees. There’s something very strange going on, but more on that later.

For now, I have often wondered how we could best deal with these neatly made  piles of freshly fallen leaves. Would it be possible for a specialized truck to come along and scoop them all up for organic processing? It makes sense to me. There’s plenty of material. What else are we going to do with them? 

One thing I know for sure. If we don’t think of something soon, the wind will come along and blow them all over the place.

Any ideas?

wasteman over&over

I was wondering why we needed to buy new fans from the supermarket each year (see previous post). Could it be because the ones that the supermarkets sell are so cheap and nasty that they only last one year and then we throw them out onto the footpath?

I spotted this fan in the street today. The day after the post on fans…funny how things work..or don’t!

By the way… sweating is good for you!

over&over

wm

Every year it’s the same story. We get a week of hot weather and the supermarket shelves fill up  with electric fans for sale. It always amuses me.

Why can’t we prepare ourselves a little better? Why can’t we make small adjustments to our lives and our homes to help us through the hot times? Let’s start thinking about Summer in Spring. And while we’re at it, Winter could really do with some attention in Autumn!

One other thing. Every year the shelves are filled with fans, and every year, thousands of fans are sold. Surely everyone has a fan by now? Don’t they?

The best part is that electric fans and air conditioners are keeping us cool, from a planet that is heating up, because we are using electric fans and air conditioners!

There are many ways to keep cooler as the weather gets warmer. Just off the top of my head, do you have adequate insulation in the roof? Do you have blinds over the windows? Can you plant some trees to provide shade? Do you have cross ventilation? There must be many others. I’ve read about this sort of thing many times, however right now I can’t remember where…must be the heat!

wasteman over&over

The greeting card above was handmade utilizing a combination of elephant poo and recycled paper. It originates from Cambodia, the production of which helps to provide employment for the rural people. It’s a truly delightful card and I promise it doesn’t smell much. Only kidding! There’s no smell at all.

All income supports the five elephants of the Pnom Tamao Rescue Centre – ( I guess they are the ones that did the poo!).

enjoy!

wm