My former
PHB could have kicked all of our asses... at once!
They may sport love handles and Ivy League degrees, but every two weeks, some Silicon Valley techies turn into vicious street brawlers in a real-life, underground fight club.
Kicking, punching and swinging every household object imaginable -- from frying pans and tennis rackets to pillowcases stuffed with soda cans -- they beat each other mercilessly in a garage in this bedroom community south of San Francisco.
Then, bloodied and bruised, they limp back to their desks in the morning.Research Credit: EG
posted by Kevin at 3:32 AM
How about having to pay to throw your trash away? That's right. In most of New Zealand, waste/trash/rubbish works like this:
If you don't compost it, reuse it, or recycle it, you have to pay to dispose of it.
For the average, throw-it-out American, I think this would be one of the most jaw-dropping aspects of New Zealand.
As Becky and I were making a recycling run, I couldn't help but to be amazed at how matter-of-fact people were about doing this. Young and old. Male and female. Better off and less better off. People separated their plastics, glass, aluminum and cardboard, and put them all in the appropriate bins.
Becky and I compost, reuse and recycle everything we can. As a result, we have generated only three grocery-store-sized bags of landfill waste since I got here in March, or about one bag per month. Even though most of what we eat is made from bulk-bin purchased dry goods and vegetables, that are carried in reused bags, the waste we are generating is almost all food related packaging that can't be recycled. We will be generating even less waste as we ramp up food production here on our farmlet.
As a small, island nation, the problems associated with profligate waste became a national security matter for New Zealand sooner than it might have for other countries. But even in NZ,
there's a long way to go.
Related: Zero Waste New Zealand
posted by Kevin at 1:08 AM