When I tell people that the stuff they leave out on the pavement for collection on Council Clean-Up Day simply gets picked up by a regular garbage truck, crushed and sent straight to landfill, I am always met with disbelief and incredulity. I do my best to gather up anything useful and have so far acquired a rug, a stereo, a candle holder, a handbag, lots of garden pots and plants, a chest of drawers, a shelving unit, two chairs, a worm farm, countless books and a job lot of delightful wooden ornaments for my garden in the process. Here in Balmain at least, the quality of some of the items that people deem no longer worthy of keeping is beyond belief. However, perhaps the problem is one of misinformation.
The tradition of leaving things out on Council Clean Up Day seems to be getting bigger and bigger and people do seem to put things out which they must believe could be useful to someone else. It has become a little like misguidedly dumping all of your unwanted stuff on the doorstep of the local charity shop, without giving a thought for how much time, effort and resources have to be employed to sort and redeploy it all. I believe that people's intentions are in the right place, they just don't imagine that the council is doing anything other with their unloved wares than 'recycling' it.
It's become socially acceptable to dump stuff on the street instead of taking responsiblity for over-consumption in the first place. Not being in a position to give much thought to old toasters when they die because of the endless cycle of cheap goods that don't last and unwillingness of the part of manufacturers to set up collection schemes for obsolete or dead goods, we think we can solve the problem by just sending them elsewhere. That includes 'dumping' recycling on the Third World and making it someone else's problem. Out of sight, out of mind, I think you call that.
If the council were up front and honest about what happens to those items that get picked up in this way twice a year, perhaps many more people would make more of an effort to pass them on to somebody who could actually use them. When I want to find a new home for something I no longer use, be that magazines, old sheets, a TV or a mobile phone, I post it on Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) which lets me get in touch with people in my local community who might want something I no longer do. In Marrickville, the excellent community co-operative Reverse Garbage (www.reversegarbage.org) makes its mission the creative reallocation of donated reusable materials.
We all have a responsibility to re-think our consumer lifestyles in favour of a more sustainable future. If we could all refuse once in a while and reduce the amount of stuff we send to landfill by making much more of an effort to re-use our 'rubbish', the world would surely be a better place. Leichhardt Council can help us do this by not continuing to make its residents believe in the rubbish fairy who will simply make it all disappear, because it's just ending up in someone else's backyard.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Ned Kelly
If one more person tells me that Ned Kelly was a hero I think I'll scream. He was nothing more than the crim de la crim.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Who Ate All The Pies?
Woman walks into a shop to buy some lunch and spies some pies.
"What are your pies today, may I ask?"
"Oh ... they're plain pies."
"What do they have inside them?"
"Meat ... of course."
"So, they're not chicken or vegetable ... or indeed 'plain' ... they are in fact 'meat' pies, yes?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks. I'll have on of your 'plain' meat pies then."
"What are your pies today, may I ask?"
"Oh ... they're plain pies."
"What do they have inside them?"
"Meat ... of course."
"So, they're not chicken or vegetable ... or indeed 'plain' ... they are in fact 'meat' pies, yes?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks. I'll have on of your 'plain' meat pies then."
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Lions in the World
Lion numbers have fallen 90% from 200,000 in the 1960s to 20,000 today.
How did we let this happen?
How did we let this happen?
Monday, March 29, 2010
Earth Hour on Goat Island
When I booked tickets for the Earth Hour event on Goat Island this weekend, I was looking forward to exploring the island, listening to a bit of music and being in the company of like-minded people. Instead, I got something quite different.
At no point was it made evident that the event would actually be a self-congratulatory PR exercise for various politicians and corporate sponsors. At least not until they arrived and began swilling champagne, smoking cigarettes and dropping litter.
We had taken the opportunity to arrive on the 4.15pm ferry and had enjoyed a lovely couple of hours taking in the views and soaking up the atmosphere (albeit that we were somewhat disappointed that so much of the island was out of bounds). But the promised musical entertainment never happened and, instead, we were subjected to a barrage of smug speeches intended for the assembled audience of invited VIPs (who, incidentally, also took it upon themselves to stand in front of everyone else's view of the stage). Listening to glib statistics about the Copenhagen summit (an unmitigated disaster) and the half-hearted attempts to get Sydneysiders out of their cars was not why I was there.
I sincerely hope that the $60 I paid for two tickets for the afternoon wasn't paying for the non-organic bubbly and imported shrimps they were consuming. I would assume that with $100,000 of sponsorship money between them, these people had in fact paid to be there and weren't just on a 'freebie' for the benefit of the Mayor. I'm still just a little confused as to the real point of the exercise. It was clearly not the public event that it was billed as, but something quite different. I would be mortified to think that I was associated with an event that was supposed to be in aid of the environment, but which left such a mess of (non-biodegradable, non-recyclable) plastic and other litter in its wake, not to mention the cigarette butts.
Why did the music not start until nearly 9pm? In fact, why was there amplified music at all during this hour? We had been led to believe that there would be music beforehand, but were looking forward to spending an hour by candlelight in the peace and quiet, contemplating the stars! By the time any entertainment did begin, most of the public 'guests' would have been rushing to catch the last ferry home.
This appalling example of corporate and political 'spin' is exactly what is wrong with all those feeble and half-hearted attempts to tackle our environmental problems head on. They are being spearheaded by people who just don't really care, not even enough to pick up their own rubbish. I feel for the Parks & Wildlife staff who were left to clear up the mess on Sunday morning.
A one-hour partial switch-off by a few buildings does not strike me as a particularly ambitious target when climate change threatens us more and each day. Particularly not on the part of a nation which has one of the highest per capita levels of carbon emmissions in the world. If Clover Moore and her associates are really serious about tackling the issue, then a poorly executed PR stunt in which a couple of hundred members of the public were duped into paying $30 a ticket just so they could say it was a 'public' event, enjoyed and supported by the citizens of Sydney, is not the way to do it. The skyline of Sydney is lit up on a nightly basis by these beacons of conspicuous consumption. Why is nobody taking these building owners to task for leaving their office lights on 24 hours a day, let alone their advertising signs (for which I am assuming the city receives revenue?).
I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't felt as though I were gatecrashing a gravy train event at which I were not welcome. As a grass roots 'greenie' who likes to get their hands dirty in the garden growing my own veg and routinely picks up litter in the street, I was given more than the odd sideways glance when I tried to mingle with the crowd. Perhaps it's because I wasn't wearing the right shoes ... but since no-one told me it was going to be a VIP event I didn't think I needed to dress up!
I've got dozens of ideas about how we can tackle wastage and climate change on a local level. But nobody handed me a cold glass of beer and asked my opinion! Could somebody please enlighten me as to what the true purpose of this fiasco was? We left before the end of the hour, not least because I don't think I could have stomached the cheer of delight when the lights came back on!
I understand that some of the ticket money I paid may have made its way into the hands of the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, which is great. But I would consider it an appropriate gesture of goodwill on the part of the Mayor's office if they were to reimburse me (and everyone else who was there) the cost of our ticket ... unless, of course, they can assure me that every free drink quaffing attendee had personally made a donation to the World Wildlife Fund ... because from the way it looked last night, we hapless citizens of this fair city who had, in good faith, supported an event they believed to have been put on by the Goat Island trustees, seemed to have funded nothing more than a binge drinking session for corporate sponsors.
Not amused.
At no point was it made evident that the event would actually be a self-congratulatory PR exercise for various politicians and corporate sponsors. At least not until they arrived and began swilling champagne, smoking cigarettes and dropping litter.
We had taken the opportunity to arrive on the 4.15pm ferry and had enjoyed a lovely couple of hours taking in the views and soaking up the atmosphere (albeit that we were somewhat disappointed that so much of the island was out of bounds). But the promised musical entertainment never happened and, instead, we were subjected to a barrage of smug speeches intended for the assembled audience of invited VIPs (who, incidentally, also took it upon themselves to stand in front of everyone else's view of the stage). Listening to glib statistics about the Copenhagen summit (an unmitigated disaster) and the half-hearted attempts to get Sydneysiders out of their cars was not why I was there.
I sincerely hope that the $60 I paid for two tickets for the afternoon wasn't paying for the non-organic bubbly and imported shrimps they were consuming. I would assume that with $100,000 of sponsorship money between them, these people had in fact paid to be there and weren't just on a 'freebie' for the benefit of the Mayor. I'm still just a little confused as to the real point of the exercise. It was clearly not the public event that it was billed as, but something quite different. I would be mortified to think that I was associated with an event that was supposed to be in aid of the environment, but which left such a mess of (non-biodegradable, non-recyclable) plastic and other litter in its wake, not to mention the cigarette butts.
Why did the music not start until nearly 9pm? In fact, why was there amplified music at all during this hour? We had been led to believe that there would be music beforehand, but were looking forward to spending an hour by candlelight in the peace and quiet, contemplating the stars! By the time any entertainment did begin, most of the public 'guests' would have been rushing to catch the last ferry home.
This appalling example of corporate and political 'spin' is exactly what is wrong with all those feeble and half-hearted attempts to tackle our environmental problems head on. They are being spearheaded by people who just don't really care, not even enough to pick up their own rubbish. I feel for the Parks & Wildlife staff who were left to clear up the mess on Sunday morning.
A one-hour partial switch-off by a few buildings does not strike me as a particularly ambitious target when climate change threatens us more and each day. Particularly not on the part of a nation which has one of the highest per capita levels of carbon emmissions in the world. If Clover Moore and her associates are really serious about tackling the issue, then a poorly executed PR stunt in which a couple of hundred members of the public were duped into paying $30 a ticket just so they could say it was a 'public' event, enjoyed and supported by the citizens of Sydney, is not the way to do it. The skyline of Sydney is lit up on a nightly basis by these beacons of conspicuous consumption. Why is nobody taking these building owners to task for leaving their office lights on 24 hours a day, let alone their advertising signs (for which I am assuming the city receives revenue?).
I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't felt as though I were gatecrashing a gravy train event at which I were not welcome. As a grass roots 'greenie' who likes to get their hands dirty in the garden growing my own veg and routinely picks up litter in the street, I was given more than the odd sideways glance when I tried to mingle with the crowd. Perhaps it's because I wasn't wearing the right shoes ... but since no-one told me it was going to be a VIP event I didn't think I needed to dress up!
I've got dozens of ideas about how we can tackle wastage and climate change on a local level. But nobody handed me a cold glass of beer and asked my opinion! Could somebody please enlighten me as to what the true purpose of this fiasco was? We left before the end of the hour, not least because I don't think I could have stomached the cheer of delight when the lights came back on!
I understand that some of the ticket money I paid may have made its way into the hands of the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, which is great. But I would consider it an appropriate gesture of goodwill on the part of the Mayor's office if they were to reimburse me (and everyone else who was there) the cost of our ticket ... unless, of course, they can assure me that every free drink quaffing attendee had personally made a donation to the World Wildlife Fund ... because from the way it looked last night, we hapless citizens of this fair city who had, in good faith, supported an event they believed to have been put on by the Goat Island trustees, seemed to have funded nothing more than a binge drinking session for corporate sponsors.
Not amused.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Australia : Welcome to the first Murdochracy
http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/03/pilger-australia-murdoch-media
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Norway Offers to Cut Carbon Emmissions by 40%
Discussions over what is going to happen, or not happen, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December are, so to speak, starting to heat up. I note today that Norway "may" cut its carbon emmissions by 40% by 2020, the biggest pledge by any individual government to date.
Does this mean that the Norwegians are suddenly all going to sell their cars, give up their central heating and refuse to buy plasma TVs? We think not. So what are they going to do to achieve this monumental decrease?
The increasingly competitive language of the PR game governments are playing with regards to climate change also warns against taking such figures at face value. To reduce levels by 40% of 1990 levels by 2020 sounds better, but must surely be less, than to 40% of current levels. Just a thought.
I suppose that Australia is being quite honest in a funny kind of way, with its particular head-in-the-sand attitudes. Maybe Copenhagen should be less about political spin and more about reducing consumption in ways that we can all understand. Unless of course they are sitting there right now powering this website by cycle power alone, in which case I apologise profusely and put my cynicism right back where it belongs, on the next gravy train to Timbuktu.
United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, December 7th-18th 2009
Does this mean that the Norwegians are suddenly all going to sell their cars, give up their central heating and refuse to buy plasma TVs? We think not. So what are they going to do to achieve this monumental decrease?
The increasingly competitive language of the PR game governments are playing with regards to climate change also warns against taking such figures at face value. To reduce levels by 40% of 1990 levels by 2020 sounds better, but must surely be less, than to 40% of current levels. Just a thought.
I suppose that Australia is being quite honest in a funny kind of way, with its particular head-in-the-sand attitudes. Maybe Copenhagen should be less about political spin and more about reducing consumption in ways that we can all understand. Unless of course they are sitting there right now powering this website by cycle power alone, in which case I apologise profusely and put my cynicism right back where it belongs, on the next gravy train to Timbuktu.
United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, December 7th-18th 2009
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