This is a big part of my lifestyle and I havent really shared it on Steemit yet..
RECYCLING!
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As an introduction, I want to use a memory that has just popped up in my head related to the word recycling.
I was in Bern, Switzerland with a friend and we had just got some re-useable things from the trash, what I cant remember exactly now and then we came across a long line of people (really long around 15) all queuing up in the sunshine to put bottles in a bottle bank that sat on the street.
Me and my friend was laughing at how people recycle by putting stuff IN the trash, when a women came and asked if we knew what everyone was doing and started to tell us about recycling. We found it quite ironic that people were so eager to put bottles in a bottle bank and so joyus that they were recycling, the atmosphere was immense from the group of strangers all doing the same good deed, the sun was hot and so we went on our way to find the next dumpster and some shade.
I had forgotten that this is actually the only known way of recycling in the mainstream, and if one does research on this "second hand plastic thing" Like me you might have read about countrys selling off this plastic to china all done by private companys, thus none of the recycling money goes back to the people who did the recycling.
Come to think of it, I havent really ever recycled like this since leaving society, and now I only ever take things OUT of the trash, which has to become the normal way to actually recycle something.
Id like to show you a day that I took photos of recently, just an average day for me here in Oslo-Norway, living a not so "normal" lifestyle which means I have a lot of free time.
An average day of what im doing that I documented, it was the first day of real spring!
Ah yes this was the day after my first Stackitus had set in, I woke up feeling very sick from it but had to go to work anyway. It wasnt even 24 hours since it had set in and it already needed healing. I finished work and happened to just past by the coin shop to get some more when it was opening in the morning. Dam it feels instantly relieved, and to make sure it would stay away for a week or so,I had to have a sneaky peek..
On the way to the office from the coin shop, where I would buy more magerzines, I came across a container.
Its one of the best places you can happen to find a container for trash - Outside of a hotel. I have recycled lots of things from various hotels since in Oslo, they are a great source to get things from anytime of the year if you can get access to their trash cans. You will always find these in hotel trash:
- Quarter used toilet rolls (because they get a new roll each time a new guest arrives in the room)
- Bed linen (cleaned before thrown out, usually "old stock")
- Things people leave in the fridges (half bottles wine and food examples)
- Horrible soaps and Flouride toothpastes, shampoos etc, oh and new toothbrushes! (If your smelly from travelling and desperate!)
- Meat for dogs, usually fish!
When there's a huge container parked out the front, you can expect great things to be getting thrown out.
Carpets, furniture's, kitchen equipment , sometimes whole kitchens! Mattresses, random decorative pieces.
The worst thing you can do is to go in a ask " Can I take some of the trash there, or look in that container?"
I jumped up and had a look and saw there was around 12 huge black sacks and had to check them out, below was what look liked wardrobes. In the black sacks were Duvets! Clean and almost new, must have been winter ones and used for half the year. i threw one sack down on the ground and then saw at the other end of the huge container, something that Ive been looking for , A new compost toilet! It was perfect a bin, didnt manage to get a photo of it though because a women came out and told me that I should put it back in the trash.
Brainwashed
She came out and told me to put it all back and, Like I always do, I tell them that it will be reused. I told her that there are around 50 duvets here that I could take for example to the Blue cross for next winter to be used when homeless people and drug addicts are on the streets and that the big plastic bin was to be my new compost toilet.
Any NON Brainwashed human with any kind of reasoning and logic would agree that these two thing that were to be buried or burnt, would easily be recycled.
Anyway she threw it back and that then gave me the chance to ask her some things and tell her some things also. Starting of as to why we should be recycling more and getting to the question of if she had any children, at that point she looked shocked and replied "NO"
Then I asked her,
" Do you plan to have children in the future?"
-"No" she replied.
I then said "Thats great then because do you know partly why the world is getting fucked up? because of people like yourself being ignorant". Im harsh sometimes but I dont really care. Actually I hope that women had thought long and hard about or interaction. Oh and just as im leaveing, 2 phillipino guys walk out who work for the hotel (taking out the trash) and I had to say "These guys would know what its about, the Norwiegen consumerism mentality is fucked up! Have a great life anyway!"
After loading up on magerzines, it was around 11am, great time to go to work at a shopping center that I had never been to before. I took the tram 30 mins away from the city and arrived to scope out what would be the best entrance to stand at to sell them. I came across this car , parked on steps and at first was thinking that it was some lads trying to see if thier bmw 4x4 could go down them but then i realise that they were trying to push the car back up the steps.
I had set up the magerzines and sold a few but then of course the security came out and said I was only allowed to stand with one magerzine on show and I had to stand across the street. I told him that I had already sold some and would go to enjoy the sun anyway, i fucking hate people who think they have authority over me. Plus he proberbly stood and watched me from inside make more money in the time they had pulled the car up from the steps, than he makes in 2 hours. People get pissed off at that sometimes, but its my choice to work on the streets, and if ive done it for a long time then I must be able to make money from it. Here I earn commision on each magerzine which a small amount here in Norway, it equals like half a beer in a bar or a third of a packet of ciggerettes say, so its up to me how hard I work to how much I get from this.
Heres just as I was leaving the rescue truck left (a passer by) and the BMW right!
I went to look around as I was never in this area before
Not so far away I found a supermarket that was quite busy and decided as I was here and it seemed quite with not even a begger sat there so I set up the magerzines and relaxed some in the sun and got some water for me and the dogs as the sun was hot! The trash was inside so no dumpster-diving opportunity but it was nice and chilled and the people where happy to see someone there and some even brought a magazine.
This day felt like the real first day of Spring/summer.
I got home to go take a Siesta and I could see the pallet bridge for the first time as it receives no direct sunlight to melt the ice! Went up to take pictures of the other things that I have found since in Oslo in the trash, and so here are just many photos of the randomness that can be found if one has the time to look around.
I think soon I shall do a contest to give a first and second prize of SBD or STEEM to people who do a "walk with me" post, and the mission is to see what cool things you can find in trash that people have just thrown out. The one who find what everyone thinks is the "best" find, most usually being the most valuable of finds, will receive the prizes!!
Heres a more recent post showing how a land pirate eats for free
