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[dieselgman]

Sounds like a need for DIY solutions and self-reliance. That is one reason I favor the old Listers for their multi-fuel capabilities... I say - live simply, reduce consumption and avoid waste wherever practical, don't ever expect the government to be responsible for your well-being. In small-town America it is still largely practical to take personal responsibility for one's impacts on the environment and on other people. In a larger sense and considering the industrial complex in which we live, it remains a morass of greed and corruption, I fear. There are consequences for every action and for inaction as well.

dieselgman

[guest23837]

A few years ago Ireland had a glass bottling recycling "initiative" There were hoppers for clear, green and brown glass that you used depending on the colour. When they were full a tipper truck with a grab came and collected them, glass was all mixed up but that didn't matter as the glass was sent to landfill in the UK. You couldn't make this stuff up!

In my recycling centre they have facilities for plastic bottles, cardboard, paper, drinks cans, food cans, paint cans, aerosol cans, garden waste like grass, timber (non manufactured), scrap metal, polystyrene, waste engine oil, waste cooking oil, batteries, clothing, beds mattresses and furniture, rubble (no DIY waste) small domestic appliances, white goods, pallets and plastic bags. I think that's it all!

Some of the stuff I see in there is criminal bicycles, cookers. once a very usable 6 ft welding table, tools, metal shelving etc As it's a recycling centre I would have thought the idea of reusing stuff was recycling but no. The customer pays, the customer sorts the materials and the privately owned "recycling company" sells the stuff directly to the Chinese cleaned, sorted and probably at a premium because of it Grrr

[dieselspanner]

Google Emmaus UK,

They are big in France, in the last 5 years they have become very professional.

Maybe you should kick start them in Oz

We visit an industrial sized one near Pau and each time it gets slicker. It takes a couple of hours to stroll around it.

Cheers Stef

[guest23837]

I'm not sure about the plastic bottles with caps, it seems to be mostly milk and soft drink containers. On the cans food cans here are steel, beer and soft drinks cans are aluminium and probably worth considerably more when melted. The cans go into hoppers and are crushed before being pushed into the skip.

I forgot to mention "tetra pack" cartons. I'm not sure whet they’re called in other countries they’re the waxed cardboard containers that milk and orange juice etc comes in. Apparently it's a serious offence in Ireland to allow these tetra packs into the paper or cardboard.

Little aside. When I was a young lad I used to gather what we called lemonade bottles and beer bottles. All glass soft drink bottles had "return for deposit" formed into the glass. Beer bottles were 2p I believe and soft drink bottles 5p. I wonder if young boys would still gather bottles for a small sum. This was before kids got pocket money I got comics, bazooka Joes, and when I got older a fair few 10 packs of cigarettes from gathering bottles. Has to be better than burying them or using indestructible plastic!

[LowGear]

Gosh,

All this anger and so little hope.  It's not really this bad.  The sun will come up tomorrow and we will be able to make it out.  Getting humans to accept responsibility for anything is a tough challenge.  Of course there will be cleaver CEOs that think a moments extra profit for their two bit public utility is smart but we'll get the Public Utility Commission back on track reminding them that they work for the people and not the energy companies.  The old masters always put up a fight for the good old days but the world does change.  Those good old days really weren't that good.  We remembered the good old days back then too.

If you look back only a few decades people spat on the streets regularly and yet when is the last time you saw someone spit in the street?  When is the last time you saw a clean coal ad?  When's the last time you heard about a river catching fire?

If you have a chance to view or visit a Zero Waste program - do it.  Really interesting.  We don't want the whole world looking like the rivers of Bangladesh.

Casey

[dieselgman]

Well said...

[guest23837]

The tetra packs go into a skip, I have no idea where they go after that, maybe to landfill with the bottles? 

I appear to have become a grumpy old man!

The past wasn't better, most of it was drudgery and very hard for a lot of people. Sadly society seems to have left the good parts behind with the dross. Things like re-using things, repairing things and not replacing functioning things because they were "outdated". I find it difficult to have a normal conversation with people because most of them seem to be staring at a phone. My kids have no idea how to light a fire, they’re not alone in that.

I don't think I'm a Luddite, I believe the things, skills and ideas that are worth preserving should be preserved and to hell with the rest of it.

I saw a guy on television recently cold stitching a cast iron cylinder head and I wondered how many modern mechanics had even heard of it never mind had the ability to do it.

[EdDee]

Hey JD,

I sent my Komatsu cylinder head in because some old stitching let go due to overtorque-ing of one of the precombustion chambers by a "diesel doctor" (Who almost got tarred and feathered when I found out).... Got word from the repair chaps - "We cant reweld it because somebody has put screws into the crack, never seen it before..." .... I guess I will have to just redo the stitching... Looks like the older skills are fast disappearing to be replaced by modern, it cant be done, "replace it" methods... Quite sad actually....

Cheerz
Ed

[guest23837]

Hi EdDee, cold stitching was definitely an old skill I believe the old railway men used it on the steam engines. TBH I had only ever seen a couple if items that has been stitched then I saw this guy on television. I have since watched a couple of videos made by a guy in the states, he has a modern twist on cold stitching but he does a fabulous job. I went to a guy one time that repairs vehicle radiators to get a bit of brazing done but he had no brazing rods as he didn't need them! I wonder how he repaired real radiators?

Glort, I have to agree with you those mobile phones are a curse and I hate them. Yes I have a phone I use it to make telephone calls when I can't talk to someone in person. I do get text messages usually asking me to call someone because they’re low on minutes or credit.

Guns are impossible to get in Ireland unless you’re a gangster. Recently 3 guys walked into a hotel with AK47 rifles to take out a gangster the getaway man outside had a Glock, I have to jump through hoops to get an air rifle. Tosh! Of course you can illegally make a pretty serviceable shotgun for pennies

We do have some armed Garda (cops) in Ireland here's their procedure if they come upon a firearm incident. They get out of their cop car and open the boot where their weapons are secured. Take out the gun, insert a magazine, cock the gun then shout "armed guards" If that fails then after three warning shouts a warning shot has to be fired before they can take down the gangster. Said armed crook is just standing there waiting to be shouted at and shot!

I live in a rural area I seldom speak to the neighbours and there's no visiting like years ago. When I'm forced to visit friends or relatives they welcome you by staring at some crappy reality show on a television the size of a dining table with the volume at it loudest. (speaking of dining tables can't people eat with a knife and fork any more)? The Americans have a term "dumbing down" it's a great and highly accurate description of society here. Lowest common denominator empty headed morons with morbidly obese kids waddling the 3 yards from mummy’s badly parked Jeep, to the school gate. Of course there are no longer any wrong answers in Irish schools (the bastards have also removed history from the compulsory studies list) you can do professional qualifications doing exams using the multiple choice format, FFS.

Anyhoo I'll go out to the shed and talk to my grumpy collie, she probably remembers when pups were better mannered and dog food didn't taste of chemicals!

[dieselspanner]

I dearly long for the old days when blokes went out and did things with steam driven hammers and black powder, rather than waste millions of pixels, countless hours wearing out perfectly good keyboards and using up vast amounts of electrons whingeing about the state of their grandparents today.

Nostalgia, thing of the past, if you ask me!

Lighten up boys

Stef

[LowGear]

Safety Consequences:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png

Casey

[guest23837]

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Max Ehrmann

[LowGear]

The good old days pretty recent.

https://vimeo.com/156186569/782f3d61d7

Of course I would have killed for his job when I was 10.

[guest23837]

Main street in Ireland is like London,  Bejing, Atlanta, Moscow, Sydney, etc there's a mind numbing sameness. McDonalds, Next, etc. The people of Ireland are just people same as everywhere else, herd mentality, don't rock the boat types

[guest23837]

Like those pre formed plugs on electrical appliances? I suspect they are used so people that aren't "qualified" don't have to wire a plug. Maybe not! They are very irritating if you need to route a cable you have to cut off and dump or recycle a brand new electrical plug plus you need to then buy a new one. This doesn't make sense.
We bought a new fridge recently having looked at several. All of them had a little rack for eggs with ten holes. Eggs are sold in dozens so whats with the 10 holes?