Overpass Experiences The Eric Wroolie Blog

The Story of Stuff

I watched a video over the weekend that I've been thinking about continuously ever since.  It is all about where our stuff comes from, how it is consumed, and how it is disposed of.  It talks a lot about the crap we buy in Wal*Mart, etc.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

It's about 20 minutes long, but worth the time to watch it.

Plastic Bags and Onya

Time Magazine had an article about plastic bags and reusable designer plastic bags last week. The article included a graphic showing how much oil and resources are used in making all of the plastic bags used in the US. You can read the article here (but without the graphic online, unfortunately).

Here's an excerpt from the article:

The trouble is that California is one of the few places to mandate that stores offer plastic-bag recycling, and the industry has been slow to volunteer elsewhere. Less than 1% of bags are recycled in the U.S., according to the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute. Major chains like Giant Foods are trying to improve that statistic by giving rebates to shoppers who return plastic bags for recycling, although few consumers take advantage of the policy. In March, Ikea began charging a nickel per plastic bag and selling a reusable tote for 59¢. While it's still too soon to tell how this strategy has affected U.S. consumers, a similar program launched in the U.K. last year reduced plastic-bag consumption 95%. Ireland has reported a similar decline since the country instituted a roughly 20¢-per-bag "plastax" in 2002.

A few months ago, I heard of a UK company that produces a bag called Onya (the name meaning "you always have it on ya") which makes bags that fold up very small and are made up of parachute material. They can carry something like 14 kilos and fold up into a little bag which will fit on your keychain.

I ordered one last week and am very pleased with it. My only problem is that I forget to tell the people at the till that I have my own bag before they start putting things in a plastic one. So I make them take everything out of the bag so they have a crumpled used bag they don't know what to do with (they probably throw it away, defeating the point).

The bag I bought cost about £7. It does fit on my keychain, but is slightly too bulky to put it in my jeans pocket with my keys. Still, it's a nice bag and I hope it catches on more.

You can look at the Onya bags on their website here. (BTW, from a web developer's perspective, their site needs to lost the Comic Sans font.)

Live Earth at Wembley

So we attended the Live Earth Concert all day on Saturday. It was a great show. I've never been to anything like it. The top acts, in my opinion, were the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snow Patrol.

It was strange sitting in the crowd. I'm sure everyone in the crowd looked excited to the viewers watching at home. Sitting in the crowd, you get to see how varied everyone's tastes are. The two middle-age ladies sitting next to us weren't very interested in Metallica. The young early-twenties girls sitting in front of us leaped to their feet for the Black-eyed Peas and Pussycat Dolls.

I didn't bring my camera. I didn't want to travel all the way in and find that I couldn't get in without it. But I did take some pictures with my camera phone and put them up on Flickr. The quality is pretty poor and there was no zoom, so you can see the stage and stadium, but no performers. The flickr link is here.

This is the first concert I've attended in over ten years. Later this summer, it will be Prince at the Millennium Dome (the O2). Can't wait.

Massive Hail

A thunder storm just swept through town and brought down the biggest hail that I have ever seen.

Vegetarianism

I've been so busy with my current contract and the damned commute that comes along with it that I haven't posted an entry in nearly a month.

My big resolution this year is to become vegetarian. This was my resolution last year, but it only lasted 7 days. I'm on day 12 now, and doing well.

In the past year, I read too much about the meat industry and the health problems with eating meat that, although I still ate meat, I did so with a guilty conscience.

I've always felt that people who choose to be veggie must have strong will power and a little insanity. We are a country of meat-eaters (England and definitely America). I see this much more clearly now that I look at menu boards filled with things I'm not going to eat. That pasta looks good--but they put little chunks of chicken in it. That salad would be perfect if it didn't have bacon on it. Vegetarians never have it easy.

Still, I could never figure out why someone would want to be vegetarian. I put them on a parr with those crazy people who break into science labs to free all the animals.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love burgers and chicken. As a teenager, I worked in McDonalds for 3 years and frequently ate all three meals there. My dad would refer to me as a carnivore. I was never much interested in vegetables on my plate and would often leave them there. I love meat and have always had fond associations of it. Some people rave about chocolate. I rave about chicken.

But now I've read more and seen more. I can't do it anymore. Specifically, I know of two resources have had big effects on me. One is a book and the other an online video.

A very interesting book that has had a big impact on my way of thinking is The New Why You Don't Need Meat by Peter Cox. This book explores our history of meat eating and looks at the way our consumption of meat has changed in the last 30 years or so. My big takeaway from this was the realisation that with such a huge growing population, the meat industry has had to resort to barbaric factory methods to give us the product we can now get whenever we want it. Despite the romantic vision that some farmer walks out onto his farm to butcher one of his animals (probably with a heavy heart) so non-farmers can guy it on the shelves, I know that animals are scientifically reared and butchered mostly by machines. I find it ironic that people who oppose cloning could support the meat industry. This book looks at a lot of the tactics used my meat lobbyists whenever a report on the current state of our meat comes out. It is an eye-opening book.

The second thing that had a real impact on me in the last year is a video created by PETA. It's called Meet your Meat and is narrated by Alec Baldwin. If you can stomach watching this video and still support the meat industry, you're a bigger man than I am. You can watch the video at www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=meet_your_meat. You can watch it right now.

I've never been one for idealistic causes, but I really want to stick with this one. I want to be vegetarian. Not because I want to lose weight. Not because I want to be more healthy. I want to be vegetarian because I think it is right.

I wish you a belated Happy New Year.