A Date

The Grand-lad got his requested litter picker stick for his birthday.  Yesterday we received a photo of him proudly displaying said stick, and a bag of picked litter.  His mother 'fessed up to having given in with very bad grace to his repeated demands that she take him litter picking on Sunday (and apologized to him later - although she said to us that while he picked litter she had to do all the bag carrying and push the wheeled transport for his younger sister - who complained repeatedly that her 'legs were tired'!)

Apparently he had seen a discarded milk bottle somewhere en route to school and was determined to get it.  His Mum was sharing litter picking anecdotes with friends later that evening only to discover that they too have a son so determined to collect litter that they now go on family outings to pick up rubbish.

A date was made for the two families to meet up for some joint 'litter picking'.  They laughed - "We used to make dates to go out for drinks, or a meal, or go to a sports match or theatre, now we make dates to go and clean out hedgerows and pick up other people's rubbish!"

And for anyone who speculated that my own 'clean-ups' would never get further afield than the area immediately adjacent to where I live - you were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.  10 minutes on Sunday afternoon filled another bag on a block of lane I had cleaned up on Wednesday.  I have always suspected that the secluded aspect of that piece of lane (trees join overhead, bounded by the back fences of houses on one side and a little used stream-side walkway with a few park benches on the other) makes it a perfect place for teenagers to hang out, out of sight, and discard their food wrappers and cans (and nitrous oxide bottles).  It is also a cut-through from one busy road to another and the right distance from town it seems for the takeaways to have been finished and the wrappers 'ejected' out of sight of any following cars.

I have a dream that I could 'tax' the fast food joints for every one of their branded wrappers/cups/bags etc that has to be cleaned off the surrounding streets.  They would of course argue that it is not their fault, but if you target a certain market, then you add to a certain problem; the cost of cleaning it up should fall on you in some way.  It is part of the cost of doing any business - dealing with the waste it generates.  Any product that does not have its waste disposal costs built in is not priced to represent it's true economic cost.

Years ago I was living in Rotorua (NZ) when a certain well known 'burger' brand arrived in town.  Apart from quickly putting all our favorite local one-man burger joints out of business, their branded waste appeared on every street within days.  All credit to the franchise owner there, they quickly employed someone to clean it all up (and keep it that way) as they regarded the appearance of all the rubbish as not good for their image or their business name.  That was over 45 years ago.  I have not heard of a single one of those franchise holders doing that since, and the evidence here is that they don't bother.  Some people say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but there are varieties of advertising that, while free, are not projecting an attractive message to a growing proportion of the population.

That's enough of my hobbyhorse for anyone's day.  I can really rant when I get started on the subject of wastefulness, wasteful use of limited resources, and throw-away culture.

Have some pictures of Mr T to lighten the mood.

Laundry basket cupboard (which he worked out how to open by himself.)

Newly arrived in Greece: Only time I ever saw him inspect the inside of the washing machine

Mr T found a stag beetle (no stag beetles were harmed in the making of this program)

A very young Mr T doing cute