I don’t!

Posted on September 26, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cost, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2071, designer, expense, fashion, glitz, Life, Waste10 Comments

What brands do you associate with?

Brands? You can keep them. Expensive, exclusive, snobbish, wasteful, fashion victims.

I have never really bought brands, especially clothes. I don’t feel they mean anything to me. I can see how expensive brands exclude the majority. Or people spend money they can’t afford to go one better than their neighbours.

In some ways I can see the manufacturer Ford’s argument that you could have any colour of car so long as it was black! Now people want exclusive sports cars, or utility vehicles. But to me as long as a car gets me from A to B safely and at no great cost? I’m happy. It can be shabby, growing moss on the bodywork. As long as I can use it for transport that’s fine.

Imagine the savings? You don’t have to spend too much to get something decent. If I can I will try and choose reliability and boring mundanity over glitzy, showy brands. And with those characteristics you can have something that is less likely to get stolen. It makes life easier not to bother with brands.

Obsolescence

Posted on July 27, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bulb, Conversation, Life, make do and mend, Manufacturing, Obsolescence, obsolete, Time, Waste2 Comments

‘That’s obsolete!’ She said.

‘Why? It still works?’

‘You can’t get the parts anymore!’

‘Well, it’s still useful’ he replied ‘and what about make do and mend? You think about it, make it last and you don’t have to waste limited resources.’

‘But what about the manufacturers?’ she asked ‘if they make less things, they won’t be able to keep going? they will close down and you won’t be able to build a replacement if your object breaks.’

He thought for a while ‘they could charge a slightly higher price? Or they could mothball plants until they are needed again. It would be a difficult balance to make, but we need to stop wasting materials and energy.’

It’s a conversation that needs to happen. The world seems to think growth is most important and is the only thing to do. But perhaps we should stop and think.

My dad bought home a bulb from work which was in our bedroom. It never broke, it was still working when we moved house. Imagine stopping built in obsolescence. The act of making things with a built in shelf life. So your kettle only lasts two or three years, your car only ten. Why not make things like that longer lasting?

Dumped waste

Posted on September 5, 2022September 5, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Builder, Council, councillor, distress, Email, Fly tipping, Mess, Photos, Rubbish, WasteLeave a comment

Excerpt from an email to my local councillor about flytipping on our alleyway :

“Dear Councillor

Over the last few weeks the owners of xxxxx and the owner of xxxxxx London Road have dumped all this waste on our alleyway that includes access to the rear of our property at xxxx and also number x and x effectively blocking access for all three properties. The waste was originally moved from behind the xxxxx shop, they removed some of it but dumped the rest behind the flats. The owner of the flats or his workers dumped it on our alleyway. It is four or five feet high and at least twenty foot long. I have spoken to various people at the flats who promised it would be removed a fortnight ago. Instead the heap is getting bigger.

The owner said he was told to dump it on the alleyway and the council would remove it, he says he has chased it up with an officer called xxxxxx who assured him it would be removed by last Friday. I gave him my email address but don’t know if he will do as he says.

Will you please visit to see the problem. I am concerned that we will be left in a situation where we have to remove it which I cannot afford. It was rubbish on the left of the path including fly tipping and buddlea that had grown there over several years.”

I went on to add some personal details explaining why I cannot deal with this without my councillors support.

Yours sincerely

Don’t flytip!

Posted on July 29, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged awful, Destruction, Environment, Nature, Poem, Poetry, Rubbish, Tyres, Waste, WorldLeave a comment

Dumped

Tyre quoits

Don’t do it!

Dispose of correctly

Care for the world

It doesn’t need our rubbish

Encompassing the world

With our rubber and plastic

Destroying nature

With our excrement.

😞

Blue bins

Posted on April 7, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bin, blocked pavement, blue bin, Collection, doubled, extra plastic, fortnightly, grey bin, Rubbish, Waste2 Comments

Seeing double.. Our bins have doubled overnight, which is great if you don’t mind having to fight your way past them or walking on the road. We should recycle but I try not to buy stuff in plastic tubs or bottles. In return they are cutting our collection to fortnightly. I can imagine our grey bin overflowing by then. We really did not need extra plastic on the street. It’s just cost cutting again.

Clothes sizes

Posted on March 7, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Clothes, disenfranchised, landfill, Life, Recycle, Reuse, sizes, Thinking, Time, Waste2 Comments

I was talking to a friend about buying clothes and she said although she has lost weight she still thinks she’s a size twenty. She said the woman serving her said the clothes in the shop only go up to size eighteen. My friend was so embarrassed she decided to say she was buying for a friend. She tried on an eighteen and a sixteen and they both fit because she has lost weight. But I think the shop and its owners are missing a trick. The majority of women in the UK are over size sixteen. I think the fashion industry disenfranchises a lot of customers. They struggle to find affordable clothes that will fit. How many size ten to fourteen clothes remain unsold and go to landfill? If they sell ten percent of their clothes the rest will probably not be recycled. What a waste of resources and money.

Forest fires.

Posted on August 14, 2021August 14, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Climate change, Earth, Ecosystem, Forest fires, Heat, Life, Overheating, Temperature, Waste, World2 Comments

The world watches as forests burn. In the Amazon, around the Mediterranean. In the North where the temperatures have soared.

We have been told by scientists and young adults alike, but many turn their backs to the truth. Climate crisis deniers are like ancient Nero, fiddling while Rome burned.

We must take action now. Reduce our carbon footprints. Even in small ways we can help. One degree less on the thermostat, walking instead of driving, house insulation and double glazing. Not much in scheme of things, better than nothing. Now we are used to Zoom why not meet on line? Ask the important questions. Do we need the car today, can you replace things when they wear out with second hand, pre loved items. There are so many people on the Earth, let’s be fair, share, and waste less.

Helium balloon…

Posted on July 23, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Birthday, Collage, Floating, Fun, helium balloon, holographic patterns, landfill, Waste6 Comments

What to do with this? It’s gradually deflating, the balloon gets more crinkled every day. I cut the ribbon off and it drifted back upwards again.in

The balloon is about a month old, it was part of my birthday celebrations. My first thought was to burst it, but I’ve watched its behaviour as its gradually deflated. This morning it was floating just above the floor. The ribbon, which must have weighed only a gram or two, was enough to weigh it down.

Now? It’s floated upstairs, it’s in the room I use for making art. When it’s fully deflated I shall use it for collage rather than throwing it away to go to landfill… It will be recycled.

Going 3d

Posted on January 19, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #MendNotTrend, 3d, Abstract, Art, carrier bag, Design, Is it art?, Photos, Plastic, Sketching, WasteLeave a comment

Today’s challenge on #MendNotTrend (day four) was to create something three dimensional out of string or plastic and perhaps draw it or draw the idea of what it would look like if you didn’t have anything to work with. So I cut a carrier bag in half (down the front, then down the back) leaving it uncut at the bottom. I twisted both sides by the handles to make a plastic ‘rope’. I then looped it through one handle and looped into the loop over and over, finishing at the other handle loop…. See photos. I finally drew the outcome…

Fly tipping

Posted on September 30, 2020September 30, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Austerity, Bulky waste, Council, Cuts, Flytipping, Friends photo, Rubbish, Society, WasteLeave a comment

It’s happening here in my home city all the time. I report it but the council probably don’t have the staff to deal with it anymore because of the cuts (austerity cuts in local government by our National government). A few years ago the council used to have days when people could have their bulky rubbish collected, but now people have to pay to take stuff to the tip and they don’t have the money. They should be encouraged not charged to use the tip. Also I guess covid isn’t helping…

The world is full of rubbish, plastic, toxic waste, pollution, CO2, fluorocarbon, the list seems endless. What we leave in our neighbourhoods is just a small part of the wreck we are making of the Earth.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Waste