Walmart and Food Lion in Onley
Walmart and Food Lion in Onley already have theirs up, so check them out and thank them for participating. Waste Watchers hopes to see them all around the Shore at Food Lions and Fresh Prides and Dollar stores and other places where people appreciate being reminded to Bring Your Own Bag.
It would be a nice touch to have our Shore pride show up and down Route 13 with a local message for a sustainable practice.
This is not a radical proposal and sustainable is not a dirty word. Waste Watchers is suggesting that this summer we all make an effort to get in the habit of bringing our own bags to the store. In my case it took me at least 6 months to really get the habit, but I'm a slow learner, so the summer is a good place to start.
Lots of places globally are banning plastic bags or making them cost consumers, but that's not likely to happen here, yet. What we can do is use less of them in the first place, reuse them when possible (they are great for lining waste baskets, picking up poop, or carrying tennis shoes- just for starters) and then, recycle them whenever possible.
Here on the Eastern Shore our plastic bags are recycled and that's a good thing. What would be better would be to use less of them altogether?
We've all seen plastic bags blowing in the wind, across the field, hanging from the trees, bobbing along the beach. Here on the Shore this is a sadly common sight. Plastic bags, along with other litter, line our roadways.
(Can you believe I'm glad the weeds are growing because they hide the roadside trash? It's one of summer's illusions that I actually look forward to. After the long fall, winter, and spring of looking at the garbage in the ditches I'm relieved not to see it.) But I digress.
As a trash talker for Waste Watchers of the Eastern Shore, I've been referring to plastic, made from petroleum, as having come from dinosaur bones. My idea was to illustrate how old it is. Well, I was wrong.
2011年6月16日星期四
2011年6月2日星期四
The facility also has programs on the road
The facility also has programs on the road in our communities, including the household hazardous waste mobile unit for paints, solvents, thinners and the like. All the staff are trained with how to pack these hazardous chemicals and transport them to the facility where they are stored until Atlantic Industrial comes to pick them up. “Some of it gets recycled and some of it gets stabilized,” says Avery.
The Hazardous Waste storage area also contains barrels of engine oil that will be recycled and buckets of cooking oil which is used in biofuels and animal feed. Propane canisters, and automotive batteries are also collected and shipped off for refurbishment or recycling.
The drop-off point, just past the new office building for the facility, is as far as members of the public can go at the Waste-management site. There are large, clearly marked bins for the separation of garbage in the drop-off shed. To the side of the shed is a little garage with a unique purpose; it’s a reuse center. Avery explains, “If someone comes in with something that is still good, that could be of use to someone else, we ask them to put it there. Then people can come in and help themselves to whatever they want. It’s just another way of recycling.”
Just past the drop-off shed is the compost area where as many as 30 to 50 bald eagles can be seen vying for a place at the table on any given day. Under a large tarp is a mound of garden-ready compost. “We sell that on a regular basis. Right now it is going like hotcakes. We don’t have a problem getting rid of it. Most of our organics come from the Town of Antigonish; they have a green box program, and businesses around Guysborough and Port Hawkesbury. We get some fish waste from plants around here as well.”
The compost facility has two main pieces of machinery: a mixer and a screener. Other then these two machines the compost goes through several cycles of curing both inside and outside before it is garden-ready.
Next up on the tour is the diverted materials area. “This doesn’t go to the landfill, we find other uses for it,” says Avery. With the tire-recycling p rogram, tires are chipped in Halifax and reused as an aggregate.”
There’s also a clean wood and brush pile. “We chip that up and use it over in the compost facility for a bulking agent.” Construction and demolition debris is used for cover on the landfill and in some cases it is sent to NewPage for pulp fill.
The Hazardous Waste storage area also contains barrels of engine oil that will be recycled and buckets of cooking oil which is used in biofuels and animal feed. Propane canisters, and automotive batteries are also collected and shipped off for refurbishment or recycling.
The drop-off point, just past the new office building for the facility, is as far as members of the public can go at the Waste-management site. There are large, clearly marked bins for the separation of garbage in the drop-off shed. To the side of the shed is a little garage with a unique purpose; it’s a reuse center. Avery explains, “If someone comes in with something that is still good, that could be of use to someone else, we ask them to put it there. Then people can come in and help themselves to whatever they want. It’s just another way of recycling.”
Just past the drop-off shed is the compost area where as many as 30 to 50 bald eagles can be seen vying for a place at the table on any given day. Under a large tarp is a mound of garden-ready compost. “We sell that on a regular basis. Right now it is going like hotcakes. We don’t have a problem getting rid of it. Most of our organics come from the Town of Antigonish; they have a green box program, and businesses around Guysborough and Port Hawkesbury. We get some fish waste from plants around here as well.”
The compost facility has two main pieces of machinery: a mixer and a screener. Other then these two machines the compost goes through several cycles of curing both inside and outside before it is garden-ready.
Next up on the tour is the diverted materials area. “This doesn’t go to the landfill, we find other uses for it,” says Avery. With the tire-recycling p rogram, tires are chipped in Halifax and reused as an aggregate.”
There’s also a clean wood and brush pile. “We chip that up and use it over in the compost facility for a bulking agent.” Construction and demolition debris is used for cover on the landfill and in some cases it is sent to NewPage for pulp fill.
2011年5月24日星期二
Downtown Springfield Inc
Downtown Springfield Inc. wants to persuade downtown merchants to help eliminate both paper and plastic bags.
The goal is to reduce the number of bags that end up in landfills, especially the non-biodegradable plastic that is the bag of choice at many stores.
Victoria Ringer, DSI executive director, said her organization is talking to retailers about a reusable bag that would become consumers’ “downtown bag” when purchasing items.
Ringer said a handful of merchants and DSI’s Image and Design Council heard a presentation from Joan Barenfanger, who, along with Jane Denes, has been driving the Better Bag Project.
According to the Better Bag Project’s Facebook page, others in Springfield — including the local hospitals, Office Depot, Schnucks, Springfield Clinic, and Wiley Office Furniture -- already are participating. Communities, businesses and groups nationwide have launched efforts to wean consumers off plastic bags and to use more eco-friendly paper and reusable bags.
Barenfanger said she and Denes also are working with the Springfield School District, the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and the Springfield Art Association and others to promote the program. The idea began a year ago under the aegis of Sustainable Springfield Inc. and the newly formed Green Business Network of Springfield.
“We’ve had a problem getting the word out,” Barenfanger said. “We’re not on any speaking-engagement list, but we’d love to talk to organizations. We want more retailers across the city to participate.”
The goal is to reduce the number of bags that end up in landfills, especially the non-biodegradable plastic that is the bag of choice at many stores.
Victoria Ringer, DSI executive director, said her organization is talking to retailers about a reusable bag that would become consumers’ “downtown bag” when purchasing items.
Ringer said a handful of merchants and DSI’s Image and Design Council heard a presentation from Joan Barenfanger, who, along with Jane Denes, has been driving the Better Bag Project.
According to the Better Bag Project’s Facebook page, others in Springfield — including the local hospitals, Office Depot, Schnucks, Springfield Clinic, and Wiley Office Furniture -- already are participating. Communities, businesses and groups nationwide have launched efforts to wean consumers off plastic bags and to use more eco-friendly paper and reusable bags.
Barenfanger said she and Denes also are working with the Springfield School District, the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and the Springfield Art Association and others to promote the program. The idea began a year ago under the aegis of Sustainable Springfield Inc. and the newly formed Green Business Network of Springfield.
“We’ve had a problem getting the word out,” Barenfanger said. “We’re not on any speaking-engagement list, but we’d love to talk to organizations. We want more retailers across the city to participate.”
2011年4月18日星期一
Mother's little shoppers
Mother's little shoppers
SHOPPING: TWENTY YEARS ago the idea of Irish school children listing “shopping” as one of their hobbies would have been unthinkable. But if the anecdotal evidence of teacher acquaintances is to be believed, this is exactly what’s happening.
From the early days of the boom, well into the middle years of the recession, shopping has been seen by many Irish people, old and young, as just another way to pass the time. For classical economists, and consumer journalists, wedded to the notion that shopping is a functional necessity, the idea that some might find the process pleasurable is alien and weird.
For these experts, shopping is a war of attrition between retailer and consumer, and willingly putting yourself on the battle-field when you have no particular consumer needs to fulfil is just asking for trouble. Consumer advice typically encourages targeted, list-based forays into the field of conflict. But this isn’t how everyone else sees it.
“When you read about the Dundrum Town Centre or the Blanchardstown Town Centre they don’t talk about ‘shopping’, they talk about ‘the experience’,” says Prof Mary Corcoran, a sociology lecturer at NUI Maynooth. “They offer stimuli, spectacle and the opportunity to while away a considerable period of time. You flow through the shopping mall, meet friends, go to a movie, have a coffee, dine out, get your nails polished. The whole concept of consumption has diversified and expanded away from the idea of meeting material needs and simply putting the clothes on your back. For many people it’s a much wider social activity and form of expression.”
Kirstie McDermott, who co-runs the beauty website Beaut.ie, has spent several years monitoring the comments of the enchanted.
“There are definitely plenty of young women out there who would consider shopping to be a hobby,” she says. Though she wouldn’t see it that way she believes that viewing it purely as a means to an end is a bit reductive.
“It really is a social activity for a lot of people. It’s dressed up as ‘shopping’, but it’s really more about getting out of the house, away from the kids and into town for an afternoon to meet friends for lunch, pop into Arnotts and Brown Thomas before heading home.”
Some academics see nothing wrong with this and argue that shopping as a hobby is simply a by-product of the capitalist world in which we live. “I think there is a bit of moral panic around things like this,” says Olivia Freeman, a lecturer in consumer behaviour at the College of Business in DIT.
“I think the fact that people say they shop as a hobby is just a reflection of the fact that as a society we have become more consumer-oriented. I certainly wouldn’t be prepared to say that it’s automatically a bad thing.
“If shopping was only for the bare necessities, we wouldn’t be in a capitalist society at all. People shop for both social and functional reasons. I definitely think that consumers these days are savvier [than in the past]. I would be of the view that they’re not passive subjects, exploited by market forces, but that they are using consumption for their own ends, although those ends could be about expressing identity and forging relationships, rather than being straightforwardly practical.”
The problem is, the adoption of this social activity is increasingly starting in childhood.
“They start at a young age, shopping a little bit with their mothers,” says Sarah McDonnell, editor of The Gloss magazine.
“Then maybe they’re allowed off the leash a bit to go to one shop alone with a friend, and by the time they’re 13 or 14 they’re marauding around a mall with their own pocket money. Before you know it, the shopping malls are filled with these phalanxes of mini-women of 14 just walking along five abreast. They definitely see shopping as a hobby.”
Debbie Ging, a lecturer in the School of Communications at DCU, thinks this is a worrying form of indoctrination.
“I find it really hard to understand how shopping can be fun or satisfying compared with climbing trees, building bike ramps or listening to music,” she says. “When we were children and teenagers, we were never told that girls are obsessive shoppers, we weren’t given plastic shopping trolleys to play with and Imelda Marcos was the only woman we ever heard of with a shoe-collection fetish. Shopping for us was a nightmare – for me it still is – that dragged us away from freedom and adventure. Now, we seem to have hordes of little Carrie Bradshaws in training. They will be experts in the art of brand obsession by the time they graduate from Pennys and Claire’s to the more upmarket labels that will promise them empowerment and liberation through anti-wrinkle cream and handbags for the rest of their adult lives.”
McDonnell is a bit less worried. “While I wouldn’t like to think that shopping was replacing other more mind-broadening activities, I don’t think it’s automatically negative,” she says.
“Those kids you see wandering through the malls, they’re not necessarily breaking the bank. I recently listened to my 12 year-old niece telling her mum and dad how much she’d spent in Dundrum. She’d split something with some friends at Eddie Rocket’s, so she was quids in for 28 cent on a milk-shake or something there, and then she bought some other tiny thing. You could argue that it’s teaching them to budget,” she laughs. “Those poor people working at Eddie Rocket’s.” And this is something their older relatives are also learning to do. These days, you’re more likely to hear hobby-shoppers outdoing one another with stories of bargains than irresponsible profligacy.
“They’re not bragging about their expensive shoes, they’re bragging about the brilliant foundation they got for five quid,” says McDermott.
“But that type of hobby-shopping is really the difference between snacking and proper eating. It’s like you’re wandering around the shops grazing. And if you’re doing that in Brown Thomas, you’re going to get into a lot more financial trouble than if you’re doing it in Penneys. So people are still going ‘shopping’ but they’re adapting.”
Indeed, almost everyone Pricewatch spoke to felt that the idea of shopping as a leisure activity was outliving Ireland’s boom years. Is this a bad thing?
“From one perspective it’s clearly a pretty superficial form of self-identity to understand or view yourself purely through branding or shopping and it’s more admirable in some ways to resist it,” says Corcoran.
“But at the same time you can’t be completely dismissive of the things that people like to do. If someone likes to do some window shopping, followed by a latte in the Dundrum Town Centre, I don’t think an analyst can accuse them of having some sort of false consciousness. It would be wrong to think of shopping purely as a utilitarian thing,” she says.
She believes that in times of austerity people become “more discerning about what they spend money on, but there’s always going to be another side of consumption that’s more about enchantment, where you go out and see the most fabulous dress in the world and you just have to have it”.
SHOPPING: TWENTY YEARS ago the idea of Irish school children listing “shopping” as one of their hobbies would have been unthinkable. But if the anecdotal evidence of teacher acquaintances is to be believed, this is exactly what’s happening.
From the early days of the boom, well into the middle years of the recession, shopping has been seen by many Irish people, old and young, as just another way to pass the time. For classical economists, and consumer journalists, wedded to the notion that shopping is a functional necessity, the idea that some might find the process pleasurable is alien and weird.
For these experts, shopping is a war of attrition between retailer and consumer, and willingly putting yourself on the battle-field when you have no particular consumer needs to fulfil is just asking for trouble. Consumer advice typically encourages targeted, list-based forays into the field of conflict. But this isn’t how everyone else sees it.
“When you read about the Dundrum Town Centre or the Blanchardstown Town Centre they don’t talk about ‘shopping’, they talk about ‘the experience’,” says Prof Mary Corcoran, a sociology lecturer at NUI Maynooth. “They offer stimuli, spectacle and the opportunity to while away a considerable period of time. You flow through the shopping mall, meet friends, go to a movie, have a coffee, dine out, get your nails polished. The whole concept of consumption has diversified and expanded away from the idea of meeting material needs and simply putting the clothes on your back. For many people it’s a much wider social activity and form of expression.”
Kirstie McDermott, who co-runs the beauty website Beaut.ie, has spent several years monitoring the comments of the enchanted.
“There are definitely plenty of young women out there who would consider shopping to be a hobby,” she says. Though she wouldn’t see it that way she believes that viewing it purely as a means to an end is a bit reductive.
“It really is a social activity for a lot of people. It’s dressed up as ‘shopping’, but it’s really more about getting out of the house, away from the kids and into town for an afternoon to meet friends for lunch, pop into Arnotts and Brown Thomas before heading home.”
Some academics see nothing wrong with this and argue that shopping as a hobby is simply a by-product of the capitalist world in which we live. “I think there is a bit of moral panic around things like this,” says Olivia Freeman, a lecturer in consumer behaviour at the College of Business in DIT.
“I think the fact that people say they shop as a hobby is just a reflection of the fact that as a society we have become more consumer-oriented. I certainly wouldn’t be prepared to say that it’s automatically a bad thing.
“If shopping was only for the bare necessities, we wouldn’t be in a capitalist society at all. People shop for both social and functional reasons. I definitely think that consumers these days are savvier [than in the past]. I would be of the view that they’re not passive subjects, exploited by market forces, but that they are using consumption for their own ends, although those ends could be about expressing identity and forging relationships, rather than being straightforwardly practical.”
The problem is, the adoption of this social activity is increasingly starting in childhood.
“They start at a young age, shopping a little bit with their mothers,” says Sarah McDonnell, editor of The Gloss magazine.
“Then maybe they’re allowed off the leash a bit to go to one shop alone with a friend, and by the time they’re 13 or 14 they’re marauding around a mall with their own pocket money. Before you know it, the shopping malls are filled with these phalanxes of mini-women of 14 just walking along five abreast. They definitely see shopping as a hobby.”
Debbie Ging, a lecturer in the School of Communications at DCU, thinks this is a worrying form of indoctrination.
“I find it really hard to understand how shopping can be fun or satisfying compared with climbing trees, building bike ramps or listening to music,” she says. “When we were children and teenagers, we were never told that girls are obsessive shoppers, we weren’t given plastic shopping trolleys to play with and Imelda Marcos was the only woman we ever heard of with a shoe-collection fetish. Shopping for us was a nightmare – for me it still is – that dragged us away from freedom and adventure. Now, we seem to have hordes of little Carrie Bradshaws in training. They will be experts in the art of brand obsession by the time they graduate from Pennys and Claire’s to the more upmarket labels that will promise them empowerment and liberation through anti-wrinkle cream and handbags for the rest of their adult lives.”
McDonnell is a bit less worried. “While I wouldn’t like to think that shopping was replacing other more mind-broadening activities, I don’t think it’s automatically negative,” she says.
“Those kids you see wandering through the malls, they’re not necessarily breaking the bank. I recently listened to my 12 year-old niece telling her mum and dad how much she’d spent in Dundrum. She’d split something with some friends at Eddie Rocket’s, so she was quids in for 28 cent on a milk-shake or something there, and then she bought some other tiny thing. You could argue that it’s teaching them to budget,” she laughs. “Those poor people working at Eddie Rocket’s.” And this is something their older relatives are also learning to do. These days, you’re more likely to hear hobby-shoppers outdoing one another with stories of bargains than irresponsible profligacy.
“They’re not bragging about their expensive shoes, they’re bragging about the brilliant foundation they got for five quid,” says McDermott.
“But that type of hobby-shopping is really the difference between snacking and proper eating. It’s like you’re wandering around the shops grazing. And if you’re doing that in Brown Thomas, you’re going to get into a lot more financial trouble than if you’re doing it in Penneys. So people are still going ‘shopping’ but they’re adapting.”
Indeed, almost everyone Pricewatch spoke to felt that the idea of shopping as a leisure activity was outliving Ireland’s boom years. Is this a bad thing?
“From one perspective it’s clearly a pretty superficial form of self-identity to understand or view yourself purely through branding or shopping and it’s more admirable in some ways to resist it,” says Corcoran.
“But at the same time you can’t be completely dismissive of the things that people like to do. If someone likes to do some window shopping, followed by a latte in the Dundrum Town Centre, I don’t think an analyst can accuse them of having some sort of false consciousness. It would be wrong to think of shopping purely as a utilitarian thing,” she says.
She believes that in times of austerity people become “more discerning about what they spend money on, but there’s always going to be another side of consumption that’s more about enchantment, where you go out and see the most fabulous dress in the world and you just have to have it”.
2011年4月13日星期三
Loewe Spring 2011 Bag Collection
Famous for streamlined silhouettes and an entrancing color palette, the revered fashion house provides us with a splendid accessory parade. The Loewe spring 2011 bag collection is packed with minimalist style designs that suit both casual and semi-formal outfits. Explore the fabulous new season vibe these chic and colorful closet staples radiate.
Steven Vevers, as the creative director of the glam fashion house Loewe, kissed goodbye to his career at Mulberry and decided to help this small brand to enter the mass-appealing market. The highly acclaimed designer brought his unquestionable skills and experience from earlier collaborations with other great labels to flood the fashion pack with brand new accessories following the style policy envisioned by Loewe. The Loewe spring 2011 bag collection will definitely launch a craze among fashionistas who are lusting after the hottest style items their favorite celebs also popularize. Kylie Minogue, Jessica Alba and also Angelina Jolie were spotted promoting the universally flattering allure of these chic shoulder- and handbags.
The conventional and old time classy anatomies of the new season Loewe bags preserve some of the minimalist vibe that reminds us of the chic Mulberry accessory designs. No doubt, Steven Vevers is still loyal to his fashion fantasy that ties him to refined structures, fine lines and neat tailoring. These professionally inspired bags come in various shapes all radiating urbane glamor and sophistication. Pair your super-polished casual chic outfits with the cutest bags decorated with floral details. The color palette used makes these accessories more playful and true to the eclectic groove of the warm season which will also melt the heart of the fashion pack to spend more on high street designer bags. Dress up your wardrobe with purple, yellow or chic neutral-colored staples that can add a splash of color to your boring weekday look.
Steven Vevers, as the creative director of the glam fashion house Loewe, kissed goodbye to his career at Mulberry and decided to help this small brand to enter the mass-appealing market. The highly acclaimed designer brought his unquestionable skills and experience from earlier collaborations with other great labels to flood the fashion pack with brand new accessories following the style policy envisioned by Loewe. The Loewe spring 2011 bag collection will definitely launch a craze among fashionistas who are lusting after the hottest style items their favorite celebs also popularize. Kylie Minogue, Jessica Alba and also Angelina Jolie were spotted promoting the universally flattering allure of these chic shoulder- and handbags.
The conventional and old time classy anatomies of the new season Loewe bags preserve some of the minimalist vibe that reminds us of the chic Mulberry accessory designs. No doubt, Steven Vevers is still loyal to his fashion fantasy that ties him to refined structures, fine lines and neat tailoring. These professionally inspired bags come in various shapes all radiating urbane glamor and sophistication. Pair your super-polished casual chic outfits with the cutest bags decorated with floral details. The color palette used makes these accessories more playful and true to the eclectic groove of the warm season which will also melt the heart of the fashion pack to spend more on high street designer bags. Dress up your wardrobe with purple, yellow or chic neutral-colored staples that can add a splash of color to your boring weekday look.
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