Home › Forums › SIMPLE SUSTAINABLE LIVING › Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle › Out throw-away society
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February 24, 2013 at 12:27 am #257636
I have 3 broken items my friends say I should replace, a vacuum cleaner, a cordless kettle and a leather lounge chair.The kettle does not switch off anymore but now I stay in the kitchen until it boils. The vacuum has a small knob broken off on the cover of the filter. I used a strong glue to glue it back on. It means I can’t clean the filter anymore. My expensive, leather lounge chair has big tears in the armrests but as I watch Frasier all the time and see his father’s armchair with the sticky tape, I decided to do that too. I am too old to warrant the $1500.00 to replace it, I found a leather skirt in an op shop and cut that up and fixed it with sticky tape. The colour is nearly the same!
February 24, 2013 at 12:43 am #531288Well done. :clap:
There is far to much ‘still usable’ stuff thrown out, in my opinion. Just take a look at the hard rubbish put out for collection.
A lot of stuff these days is made to be chucked out if it breaks. Even home handypersons can’t always find a way into the necessary nooks and crannies of some electrical gear, for example.
Oh, and of course chucking out means the consumer then needs to buy a new one.
It’s good I reckon if we can find ways to continue to use supposedly broken and wreaked things like you did Diny.
Can probably find different uses for some broken stuff. Bet alsers have some stories to tell re that. :tup:
🙂
February 24, 2013 at 5:47 am #531289I spent 3 years after I ‘was retired’ working as a casual driver/offsider for the local council on their Cleanup, which lasted 48 weeks every year.
I was trained up by the experienced drivers & offsiders to quickly check everything thrown in the back of the truck & sometimes put things aside for private collection when the shift finished.
Copper was a great interest & it takes about 30 seconds to get a copper coil out of a TV set. Building materials, tools, clothes & a heap of other ‘good’ stuff gets thrown out every week.
I was pretty selective but I’d say in that 3 years, I picked up ‘stuff’ worth thousands if I had bought it through the usual channels.
I might add I had more fun on this job then i’d had in the previous 20 years in an office, I lost 10 kgs & got very fit. 4.30 am start & a 3.30 pm finish.
Xio
February 24, 2013 at 9:53 am #531290When I lived in NSW (nearly 20yrs ago now), “hard rubbish night” was when you got to meet all your neighbours. You put your hard rubbish out, then you all went walking around the streets, checking out each other’s piles & taking things that you could use. I don’t know if there were any laws against it or not, but no-one seemed to care.
Here in SA, in my council area, we’re allowed 1 hard rubbish a year (book & pay for it first, then they’ll give you a date – most times there will only be 1 or 2 others on the same day – if they bother to pick it up on that day) & you are told in no uncertain terms that despite everything HAVING to stay on the edge of your property (no putting anything on the verge), EVERYTHING in that pile belongs to the council & people will be prosecuted for removing things from it.
So, rather than encouraging “reduce, reuse, repair, recycle”, our council encourages “it’s ours, you will be prosecuted for touching it & if you want it removed you will have to pay for it”.
Another thing they had when I was in NSW that I would love to see here in SA, were the “dump stores” – the stores set up @ the gateway to the dump that had useable things that had been dumped, for sale. Things like old tables, chairs, fridges, useable toys, etc. And the “brick, wood & metal” sale area. I assume it all came from the hard rubbish nights. Nothing like that around here. Once it’s dumped, it’s gone. You can’t buy metal from the scrap metal yards, you can only find used timber if you know where a house is being demolished or someone puts it in freecycle, but we do have a couple of places that do recycled bricks.
February 24, 2013 at 12:17 pm #531291I believe in Victoria it is also now ‘illegal’ to pick-up hard-rubbish. Local Council reckons it belongs to them now … 👿
Having said that, (and when I was in a position to) I used to pick-up a couple of choice items from time to time. Now that I live in a unit … storage is scarce. 🙁
On the flip-side (though much less seen) there are those that hoard to the extent it is piled up to the rafters of their verandahs and cluttering the front and backyards …
Moderation in all things I reckon …
But back to topic … If I can repair something first, I will do as much as I can before it is utilised for another function … and then will it be considered to the refuse pile.
:whistle:
February 24, 2013 at 1:05 pm #531292My old twin tub burnt out so I now wash the clothes in the new one (second hand) and rinse in the old one. I bucket the rinse water into the washing one and depending on whether or not the garden needs water, it gets drained into the sink or into the grey water hose. The old tub drains onto the garden.
Anyone got any ideas on what I can use the inside of my front loader for? It has sheltered chooks in the rain (and if this forecast doozy flood hits us, it will do so again), but one day the floods must stop so rather than throwing the whole machine, I’d like to pull it apart, use the outside for a bench but if I could use the inside for something, that would be better.
February 24, 2013 at 1:20 pm #531293Bron post=353944 wrote:
Anyone got any ideas on what I can use the inside of my front loader for? It has sheltered chooks in the rain (and if this forecast doozy flood hits us, it will do so again), but one day the floods must stop so rather than throwing the whole machine, I’d like to pull it apart, use the outside for a bench but if I could use the inside for something, that would be better.
Can it be used for planting something in ?
Thats what I plan to do with a few that I have hanging around the place 🙂
February 24, 2013 at 1:39 pm #531294Andre post=353942 wrote: I believe in Victoria it is also now ‘illegal’ to pick-up hard-rubbish. Local Council reckons it belongs to them now … 👿
Same in NSW.. its technically illegal to scavenge from the clean up. Everyone does though.
I spoke to someone on council about it. Its mostly a liability issue – nature strips are council property so anything piled on them is council’s responsibility. If you are injured while scavenging you can sue the council.
Our litigious society and all that…
Cheers
Dave
February 24, 2013 at 1:46 pm #531295Airgead post=353947 wrote: [
I spoke to someone on council about it. Its mostly a liability issue – nature strips are council property so anything piled on them is council’s responsibility. If you are injured while scavenging you can sue the council.
Our litigious society and all that…
Cheers
Dave
Funny that .. nature strips being council property, I mean.. That may be so but, It is our responsibility to maintain them.
It seems they want the best of both worlds..
.. typical :whistle:
** My apologies Diny, for diverting your thread, temporarily 🙂
February 24, 2013 at 2:35 pm #531296We don’t have hard pick up down here in SA but hte council charges like a wounded bull to dump it.
most of the good stuff ends up in the dump shop it used to be really good in there nice and cheap but
lately they have become dearer than the shops.
EG: Yabby net for $25 in Big W the exact same $4.95
Saw a guy walk past a nice cupboard marked for sale for $80 thougth it was nice,
he pulled the tag off and put $380, I was stunned and said you will be lucky to get that and your just
being greedy he said some mug will pay it and walked off.
Hubby took a load of tree cuttings down the other day and the guy in front had a trailer full of that brush fencing
they charged him $45 to dump it :jawdrop: Hubby had a truck load of trees and was charged $17 for nearly 2 ton
they mulch it and then resell it. The other guy with the brush fencing had to put it on the cement pad
so it could be resold in the shop
If I have anything I don’t want I put it out the front with a sign and it goes quick. Got rid of a heap of
preapine poles all sizes we din’t need someone else used them.
February 24, 2013 at 2:41 pm #531297At the risk of going wayyy off topic… :hijacked:
Yes. Nature strips are council property. You own up to your fence line. Everything from there to the road is council. Including the concrete apron that connects your driveway to the road.
It would be nice if the council then maintained their property but they don’t. It varies from council to council but there is usually a council by-law that the home owner is responsible for nature strip maintenance.
Apparently some councils still mow the nature strip for you. All of them used to but it has been phased out over the years as the cost was too high (and no one wants an increase to the rates to pay for it).
Some councils are even giving the nature strip to the homeowner… sounds good but beware – the footpath and curb are now your responsibility and you can be sued if you fail to maintain it anyone trips over on it. There are also easements over all the nature strips to allow for drainage/electrical/sewerage/phone/etc ducts so even if its yours, the electricity people can still come by and dig it up without telling you.
The reason councils hang onto them is that it allows things like a continual footpath to be provided without every household in a street having to agree to do it. Otherwise you would get a footpath in front of one house than a break then it would start again. Same with power cables etc. Its a continual strip of land that can be used to provide things that benefit the community.
For the chronically bored there is a research paper on nature strips here – http://soac.fbe.unsw.edu.au/2007/SOAC/thenaturestrip.pdf
Cheers
Dave
I now return the tread to its regular, scheduled programming…
February 25, 2013 at 12:53 am #531298Bron, is the inside of your washing machine made of metal? If so, if you can weld some legs onto the bottom of it, it makes a good firepot. I’ve got one that was made out of the inside of a top-loader. All the holes around it make for good airflow, & the ash falls out of the bottom. I sit it on a metal bbq lid, & I also discovered that the hotplate of one of those round gas bbq’s fits nicely over the top too.
February 25, 2013 at 12:49 pm #531299Thanks guys, yes it is metal 🙂 Could i smoke meat with the fire pot? (I’m not really sure what one is).
As predicted, last night we brought the school chooks home to keep them out of the flood, and forgot the roo is now crowing. This morning, he was placed inside the washing machine at 5am 😀 He did have a small breathing space.
May 12, 2013 at 2:33 am #531300You have inspired me…
One broken spring cake form pan surround
Ahh, what shall we do ? I know, lets call Superfixeruper Man.. he will save us
First things first, he needs to replace that shitty Husquvarna Cap but no time right now
Superfixeruper Man gets on the Batphone and calls up Private Pop Rivet and Major Makita. We need your help guys, the World is going to rack and ruin ’cause people keep throwing their stuff out.. we’re drowning in an ocean of “stuff”… literally.
All three Super friends meet up at the Fortress of Solitude, with Superfixeruperman doing all the work.. Private Pop Rivet and Major Makita laying around as per usual !
Oh ! you have saved the spring form pan surround, Super fixerupper man, you are my HERO !
and the girls go crazy !
May 12, 2013 at 4:14 am #531301:laugh: :laugh: :clap:
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