Old-fashioned recycling and re-use

Bugger, I think we’ve got it wrong in the recycling world by concentrating on the bigger picture of zero landfill, carbon footprints, etc.  That bigger picture is taking the place of the small snapshots we all used to see.

Some years ago most young people’s first steps on to the ladder of recycling was with the Blue Peter TV programme, which gave us the eager anticipation of waiting for a slowly emptying washing up liquid bottle, and the soon to be discarded cardboard centre of the infamous bog roll.

Once spent these items would be quickly turned into a desk tidy, storage receptacle or whatever, but even in those days the recycling world was littered with encumbrances and hardships.

I recall hoping that my mother didn’t take on board that bloody woman who advertised Fairy washing up liquid, you know, the one which lasted twice as long as the stuff your mother was using; or the adverts for softer, stronger and longer bog roll.  Both increased the waiting time for the raw materials for your next project.

So remember, dear recycler, the next time you are bemoaning the lack of material through the gate or the depressing state of prices, demonstrate some of that British stiff upper lip and self control as per John Noakes, Peter Purvis and Valerie Singleton from days of old.

Oh, and also, for next week you will need some sticky back plastic, glitter, water based glue and an adult to use that sharp knife; that’ll be to cut your throat no doubt.

Offended

How many people have noticed how the meaning and value of the word “offended” has changed so dramatically over the last few years?  I can remember when being offended was a short term thing.

The state of “offended” was a bit of an uncomfortable feeling, perhaps a few minutes of awkwardness or a bit of bruising around the old ego; “offended” to some up in the real world was a bit of a bugger.

But over the last few years “offended” has been promoted to the dizzy heights of world law, its buoyancy or god like status is now second only to death in the written and spoken world of political correctness.

If you really think about it, how many times or in what situations are you now not allowed to do certain things or give an honest opinion, simply because someone may be or could be offended?

Issues of race, creed, culture, sexuality and political bent have all been subjects where the use and value of the word “offended” has forced the masses to adhere to the minority’s tolerance levels of “offended”.

Nearly all the abusers of the word “offended” base their right to be over zealous with its value because they cite some minority’s extreme and unreasonable value of the word “offended”.

I think that everyone at some time in their life has flipped their lid, gone off on a mission over something that has got their goat.  Look at the MP’s expenses farce; I reckon your average everyday person was pretty pissed off with that fiasco, initially.

Then when the media had beaten it to death, I for one just switched off and now it’s just a good subject for a laugh and constitutes a bit of bulk to most comedians’ scripts.

But to sort the robbing muppets out was something that was never going to happen, was it?

Human nature dictates that people will always look after their own interests before that of others.  It’s a fact of life, and a smart suited villain only means the wearer will probably be more cunning than old Baldrick, Black Adder’s trusty sidekick, so little will change for our beloved politicians.

It would be fair to say most people wouldn’t want Hitler or some other lunatic tyrant in charge of world peace right now, but it would seem we are happy to let politicians sort out politicians’ misdemeanours.

I’m sure that they will put their own house in order.   Mmm, I don’t think so.  More likely is that they will very soon have a system in place that the newspapers can’t get into from now on but that’s just my cynical thoughts – thoughts which you may be offended by, which ain’t a bad thing you see, as it’s not going to kill you, cut your arm or leg off or reduce the amount of council tax you have to pay.  It’s simply an opinion; one which I hope you will have forgotten in five minutes’ time.

That’s proper use of “offended” – grind your teeth, have a moan and crack on.  Your time on the planet is all you have ‘cos this ain’t a dress rehearsal; you only get one go at it, and we all need to work hard to pay our MP’s expenses.

Change? Humans love it, don’t they?

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Change.  We humans love it, don’t we?

Who else on the home front has had the lectures on what can go into which bin at home?Now we are on the once a fortnight collection system for our general waste, “she who must be obeyed” is giving it large on the food waste.

“It’ll smell if you put it in the black bin for a week let alone two weeks, yaady yaady yaa..”

I’m all for recycling as you would expect; I’ve got a green bin, a black bin and a blue bin, and a bloody sheet stuck on the wall in the kitchen telling me which bugger is collected when.

The only satisfaction you get is when you have read the list and delivered the appropriate bin to the kerbside, as you can see which of your neighbours ain’t gonna get any tea on Tuesday nights.

So we’ve got a wheelie bin collection schedule stuck on the kitchen wall so we know which goes out on the right collection day, but have a look at the videos here as there is help available for all those lost or lazy souls out there.

 

Strange place to hoard scrap metal

Doctors in northern Peru removed almost a kilogram of nails, coins and scrap metal from a man’s stomach yesterday.

“The patient came in with severe abdominal pains. After examinations we discovered that he had hundreds of nails in his stomach,” said Carlos Delgado, a surgeon at the hospital in the town of Cajamarca.

Requelme Abanto Alvarado was admitted to hospital on Friday. During a two-hour operation doctors removed 900 grams (two pounds) of nails, coins and scrap metal from his stomach, as well as a small knife.

“I have never had a case like this,” the surgeon said. “I have operated on plenty of patients, but so many things in a stomach, it’s really extraordinary.”

Alvarado was in a stable condition following the operation, and he is to be examined by mental health specialists.

Comment: Crazy man, and what a strange place to hoard scrap metal.  Surely he’d have been better off recycling it by weighing it in?

Mud On Road

It’s that time of the year again when the farmers are out with the Autumn / Winter road signs for us poor motorists, warning us of mud on the road.

Lifting the last of this year’s crops or readying the fields for next year’s production, the work has got to be done and we have to put up with a bit of mud along our road journeys.

I was born and bred in rural Lincolnshire so I’m used to it, but I just hope the buggers (farmers) use the same signs as last year, recycling and re-using and all that.

But this year, just like all the other years, my mind goes into overdrive.  Different things have different meanings to different folk.

“MUD ON ROAD” generally equates to “Steady down; just look what you’re doing”.

Me?  Well it always makes me think that when I get home I’m going to make my own bloody signs, then sneak back under the cover of darkness and hammer my own offerings into the verge alongside the farmer’s sign.

Then as the commuters wend on their merry way the next day they can have a chuckle, as they drive past signs saying “MUD ON ROAD” and “T-REX IN THE FIELD” and “SWEET HERE LIVE NEXT WEEK IN THE LAYBY”.

Re-use – is there a place for it in the world of recycling?

In the world of recycling is there a place for re-use, or is it just a small blip, a bit of a lip services job before the final end of a product’s life?

I’m all for re-use; secondhand cars, boats, clothes, electrical goods, you name it and re-use has a place but is it really good enough to stand on the podium next to recycling?   I don’t think so.

Construction salvage yards, motor vehicle dismantlers, charity shops, cash converters all serve their purpose but I think it’s only putting off the inevitable.

Great respect and admiration for the above but I don’t think re-use should be on the podium of the recycling stage spraying champagne to celebrate its planet saving achievements.

What do you think????????

Some sad bastard pointed me in the direction of the Angry Green Girls website t’other day.  It’s worth a look; best description of Global Warming I’ve listened to and the scenery ain’t bad at all.

http://www.angrygreengirl.com/

Recycled tyres for protected sex

Greetings recycling readers, it’s another standard day in the world of recycling, out all morning on site viewing a new item of machinery for the website and back in the office talking rubbish for the rest of the day.

Anyhow, one of the most enquired about recycling operations and the most requested machinery is scrap and waste tyre recycling, as most people are aware of the massive amounts of scrap and waste tyres dumped all over the country, let alone the amount generated on a daily basis.

But a phone call today revealed a new use for the infamous black beasts as up to today my knowledge of tyre recycling went something like this:

You can bale them for economical transport and/or use the bales for foundation work and landscaping initiatives. You can shred them for fuel or for equestrian arena flooring.  You can grind it down to make fine rubber powder which can be used in new rubber production.

But today’s enquiry (looking for a shredder) tells me they are making condoms out of scrap and waste tyres, now this is a new one to me!

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As with any new cunning plan the company did not want to give away any details on how they are managing to turn the tyres into condoms, as this is obviously going to be very profitable, but they did say ratio of tyre to condom yield varies quite a lot.

Remoulds or retreaded tyres give very poor yields as do the old cross ply tyres and they quote only 20-30 condoms per tyre.

Their extensive research has shown that the better the brand of tyre the higher the yield, for example our newest world champion Jenson Button’s chosen tyre, Bridgestone’s, yield 180-200 but best of all they can get 365 in a Goodyear.

Now in these times of recession, gloom, doom and despondency and fluctuating markets, if ever there was a product whose market is guaranteed to be very up and down the condom market has to be the one.

Once again it just goes to show, us Brits are market leaders for innovative products and cunning plans and this new process will add a new meaning to “lets all be upstanding for the Queen”.

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Drum crusher needed for volatile situation

An average day for me can be two-fold.  I can be sitting in front of the plastic box of fibblygobs (computer) answering e-mail enquiries from all around the world, or out and about visiting clients to discuss recycling machinery.

Visiting clients usually involves drinking coffee, putting the world to rights in general, with a little bit of selling or a bit of buying of the lesser spotted Big Boys Toys.  Varied, interesting and generally bloody entertaining, some days more than others, same as most folk I would say.

Just occasionally you get a good one like a few weeks ago, sat in front of the old fibblygob box and an email comes in.

“Hi I’m looking for a drum crusher – needs to crush 45 gallon drums in a volatile situation.”

What does a man do?  Running through my skull cavity are visions of some poor bloke crushing drums with World War Three going off around him; explosions, bullets, hand grenades, the full bloody monty.

Now I’ll be the first one to admit I’ve got some mental issues that make Ozzy Osbourne look like a sane human being.  Issues that the Priory (nut house for the rich and famous) could well be stretched to the limit with, but come on – a volatile situation ???

It’s only going to get worse this one; the mind’s now drifting away from WW Three and on to modern technology.

This could be some seriously interesting project me thinks.  I’ve got an apple i phone and I pretend I can use a computer so let’s put an all singing and dancing PLC on the machine with a comprehensive menu of sounds.  The client can crush drums to the accompanying sounds of a pissed Punk Rocker shouting abuse or vomiting with vigour, the tune from the Jaws movie, etc etc – the possibilities are endless.

The sad mind’s now on overtime; I have to admit to having a Northern comedian’s voice on my sat nav.  I said I had issues.

And do you know as hard as a tried I couldn’t get off this mode of thinking, even as I sat at the fibblygob box to reply; trust me it all started well.

“Dear John” – the e-mail reply started, his name was John incidentally, I’m not turning Cockney.  “Thank you for visiting our website and for your interest in bla bla bla” and then the little demon with issues sitting on my shoulder kicked in, and I wrote:

“We can from our fully equipped workshops supply you with a machine complete with PLC, sound card and some very large output speakers.  Thus you can select and play a menu of pre-recorded verbal abuse sounds or other horrors to suit your mood.”

Now this is a time of recession and and all enquiries need treating with the respect they deserve, so I know this is not the way to perform, customer focus, best practice etc etc.  You try telling that to the little bastard sat on my shoulder.

In a flash the send button was hit, quotation spec sheet with additional PLC functions was gone.  The euphoria of the moment is now to be repented at my leisure.

Worse to come – as I work with the wife, I had to explain to her what the shoulder sat devil had made me do as she may have to deal with the reply, or at best she would have interrogated me as to what was happening with the enquiry.

Fair to say she was not impressed, but in fairness she did say John may be as sick as me, she doubted it but anyhow, there was quite a lot more, but I had switch off by then and thoughts had gone on to sex or cars.

Long story cut short, turns out not only was John as sad as me (he was slightly worse), he did buy the drum crusher and lived happily ever after recycling drums.

Oh, and the volatile situation – the drums had contained flammable liquids; crusher needed to be explosion proof.

Life is never easy but you can always make it interesting.

Computer Recycling – Hard Drive Destruction

You can buy anti virus, security software and use passwords with high degrees of security, but a computer geek can still read data off these drives if they are not destroyed efficiently when scrapped.  Ask your computer geek to read the data from these computer hard drives when they have been gently massaged in a shredder – computer hard drive recycling at its best.

Computer Hard Drive Destruction

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Ian Dury – What a Waste video

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