Category: Consumerism

One big climate COP-out

climate-change-copout
Image: Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe reading a speech in 2021 delivered electronically at COP26. Source: Facebook/Ministry of Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs, Tuvalu Government

The United Nations Secretary-General set the tone for the 27th annual COP climate conference by saying the world was “on the highway to climate hell”. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg no doubt agreed, earlier describing the two-week climate conference in Egypt as an exercise in ‘green-washing’.

Fair to say the representatives of 198 nations who gathered in Glasgow last year for COP26 have not done as much about climate change mitigation as we’d all hoped.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the ABC he would not be attending the COP27 conference at Egyptian resort town Sharm el-Sheikh.

“This COP will be all about implementation,” he said, delegating the task to Climate Minister Chris Bowen and other representatives.

Team Albanese have made big strides in Australia’s climate policy since being elected six months ago. Albanese is banking on mending fences by backing his government’s turnaround of the Morrison administration’s poor climate record.

Unlike British PM Rishi Sunak, who has been forced by political pressure to reverse his decision to stay at home, Albanese justified his absence, saying “I can’t be in all places at once.”

“I have a very busy schedule of parliament, then the international conferences, then back to parliament again, making sure that our agenda gets through and that includes our agenda on clean energy and taking action on climate change.”

COP is a shorthand acronym for an alphabet soup of descriptors – the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Despite this being the 27th year this global talkfest has been held, there have been many promises and commitments, yet little has been done to slow the global ravages of climate change.

Despite Egypt’s police state reputation, climate activists are there and some have already said harsh things about COP27’s major sponsor, Coca-Cola.

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said it was baffling for COP27 to choose the “world’s biggest plastic polluter” as a sponsor, given that “99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels”.

On what it cost to stage COP26 in Glasgow last year, this year’s conference in the Egyptian town of Sharm el-Sheikh will probably top $200 million. It is clearly now an annual ‘Expo” that wealthier countries want to host. It’s expensive to participate, with organisations being charged as much as $500,000 to hire a pavilion. More than 30,000 people registered to attend this year, representing governments, businesses, NGOs, and civil society groups.

Australia’s Climate Council, which has sent several delegates to Cop27, reminded us that Australia signed the Glasgow Pact in 2021.

The Pact called for countries to bring forward a 50% emissions reduction plan to COP27 and increase on that target during this decade.

Australia may be pressured to finally sign the Global Methane Pledge and other important deals it avoided under the Morrison Government.

Key issues which will emerge at COP27 include “loss and damage” financing. This refers to developing countries at the frontlines of the crisis who are suffering from the consequences of climate change. As one example, the low-lying Pacific island of Tuvalu, population 12,000, is suffering serious consequences from the CO2 emissions of others.

The Climate Council says countries like Australia, which have built considerable wealth off the back of fossil fuels, can and must do more to support climate action beyond their shores.

Back in 2009, developed countries committed to mobilise $100 billion per year in climate finance to developing countries, but have consistently fallen short. Australia would need to lift its annual contribution by 10 times to fulfil its share towards this global goal, the Climate Council said.

The UNFCCC Secretariat is the United Nations entity tasked with supporting the global response to the threat of climate change. There has been almost universal commitment to join, with 198 countries signed up. Until this year, Australia was seen as a laggard, to the extent that former PM Scott Morrison was initially not invited to attend COP26.

Heads of State and Government attended the Climate Implementation Summit at COP27 on November 7 and 8 with a high-level meeting for climate Ministers from 15-18 November.

The main aim of the UNFCCC is to uphold the 2015 Paris Agreement. As we all should know, this bare-minimum pledge was to keep the global average temperature rise this century as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Seven years on though, only 190 of the 195 signatories have ratified the agreement.

The ultimate objective is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. The sticking point, I suspect, is the proviso that this is done in a time frame which “allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development”.

The Guardian’s pre-conference report posed some scenarios for the Australian delegation, led by climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen. The Guardian’s environment writer Adam Morton said Australia can expect questions about what it is prepared to support on finance and loss and damage. Questions could be asked about the Australian government’s exit (under the Morrison government) of the green climate fund. Morton expects Australia to be under close scrutiny due to its bid to host COP in 2026.

There will (or should be) an examination of Australia’s support for an expansion in fossil fuel exports, at odds with its green policies at home.

The UN secretary-general’s COP27 opening address, where he twisted the meaning of the famous AC/DC song, was not wildly inaccurate. He was no doubt reflecting on the ongoing effects of flooding in Pakistan.

Since mid-June, unprecedented floods in Pakistan have killed 1,717 people. The floods were caused by heavier than usual monsoon rains and melting glaciers; these events following a severe heat wave. All are linked to climate change, with poor urban planning playing a significant role.

In Australia, we might make pale comparisons with the inundated New South Wales town of Lismore, battered by one flood after another. There is talk of writing the town off and rebuilding it on higher ground. Many of those badly affected by the floods have not waited to find out, relocating to supposedly less flood -prone towns (like Warwick).

The agenda-setters for climate change mitigation may well be the world’s largest manufacturing industries. International vehicle manufacturer Volvo chose this week to announce it would stop making fossil fuel-driven cars in Australia by 2026. This is unlikely to stampede the manufacturers of cheaper, mass market vehicles. All the same, it is a line drawn in the sand. We must hope that rising tides do not wipe it away too soon.

As for Tuvalu’s social media post (above) which went viral last year, it is probably not much of an exaggeration. Climate change in Tuvalu is particularly threatening for the long-term habitability of the island state. The average height of the islands is less than 2m above sea level, which has been rising at 3mm per year, about twice the global average. On a per capita basis, its CO2 emissions are 0.9 metric tonnes, compared to between 15mt and 17mt for developed countries.

As Sunshine Coast songwriter Noel Gardner sarcastically comments, in a pithy song of the same name:

So it’s toodle loo to Tuvalu, it’s not that we don’t care

But I can’t support this warming crap, taxes and despair

We can’t reduce our standards, two houses, shares and land

So its Toodle loo to Tuva Lu, I hope you’ll understand.

 

 

Australians buy 56 clothing items a year

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Goondiwindi cotton farmer Sam Coulton, taking part in a cotton waste recycling trial. Image from Cotton Australia

I know what you’re thinking – Crikey, someone’s buying my clothing share! That was my immediate response to a new report from the Australian Fashion Council. My trusty proof-reader, She Who Buys Quality Clothes and Keeps Them for Decades, asked: “Does that include bras and undies?”

The Clothing Data report concludes that a lot of the clothing Australians buy every year ultimately ends up in landfill. As the report shows, 62% of global clothing is made from synthetic materials. They take a long time to break down in landfill, posing a significant environmental risk. Galvanised by the approaching renewables deadline of 2030, the rag trade is driving a national stewardship scheme.

Meanwhile, Cotton Australia teamed up last year with the Queensland Government, Goondiwindi Cotton and others to start a cotton waste recycling trial. The trial diverted about two tonnes of cotton waste from landfill. The waste materials, including Emergency Services coveralls, were shredded and the material spread on a Goondiwindi cotton farm.

A year on, farmer Sam Coulton said the cotton fields at ‘Alcheringa’ easily swallowed up the shredded waste.

“We spread the cotton textile waste a few months before planting in June 2021,” he said in a statement from CA. “By January and the middle of the season, the waste had all but disappeared, even at the rate of 50 tonnes to the hectare.”

Soil scientist Dr Oliver Knox said that at the very least the trial showed no harm was done to soil health. He said at least 2.070kg of carbon dioxide equivalents (CI2 ) was mitigated through the breakdown of garments in the soil rather than in landfill.

“Soil carbon levels remained stable and the soil’s bugs responded well to the added cotton material.”

Cotton Australia’s Brooke Summers said the trial would be replicated in the 2022-2023 season with the addition of a Gunnedah cotton farm.

Hanes Australasia, owner of many textile brands including Sheridan and Bonds, said the company was keen to add its support.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the success of the trial in Goondiwindi,” Hanes president Tanya Deans said. “To think that we might have a scalable solution for textile waste on our shores is even more exciting.”

The Australian Fashion Council’s Clothing Data Report reveals that Australia currently imports 1.42 billion units of clothing per year, which equates to 373,000 tonnes of cloth.

You’d probably assume, and you’d be right, that locally manufactured clothing forms a tiny proportion of the production, with 38 million  items of clothing produced annually.

On an outback trip in 2021, I bought two locally made polo shirts from Goondiwindi Cotton. Expensive, but I felt so virtuous. Most of our clothing, however, is made in China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and emerging markets like Africa.

A good long time ago I was inspired to write a song “Where Do Underpants Come From?” after reading a book by Kiwi author Joe Bennett. I had some friendly correspondence with Joe as my song title was close to what he called his book “Where Underpants Come From.”

Joe was lured into writing the book after paying $8.59 for a five-pack of undies from a discount department store in Christchurch. He also lashed out on a quality pair of ‘Authentics’ for $5.99, then spent the rest of the day thinking – how could anyone possibly make a profit from selling five for $8.59?

After an initial rebuff from his agent – “Joe, it’s a crap idea. Best, Jim,” Joe set of on an investigative trail. Along the way, he trekked to China and other destinations following the supply chain from raw materials to manufactured cloth, garment-making, packaging and distribution.

If you can track this 2008 book down, it is entertaining, amusing and also illuminating, as Joe uncovers the trade’s importance to China’s emerging economy. As he says in the introduction: “There are plenty of better-informed books about China, but I suspect it is the only one that begins with a pair of underpants.”

As you may have discovered, if you deliberately go out looking for Australian-made garments, they are not easy to find and more expensive than imported items. When we first moved to Maleny in 2002, the cold winter set me off on a quest for some warm pyjamas. There was still a menswear shop in town at that stage and he showed me a pair of fleecy PJs in a black and white cow pattern. They were expensive and proved to be too warm for Maleny’s relatively mild climate (better suited for Tasmanians).

Quality lasts though and 15 years on I consigned the bottoms (the waistband elastic was gone), to the rag box. I gave the top to a musician friend who loves to dress up when she performs. I hate to think how many cheap pairs of boxers have lost their cling and gone to the rag box over the ensuing years. She Who Buys Quality Clothes and my sister-in-law (the theatre wardrobe mistress) keep trying to get me to lift my sartorial game. We go to the ballet regularly, so I don the bag of fruit I bought in Rome in 2010 and a pair of English shoes bought (in England) at a time when I was on a rare spending spree. Twelve years on, they are in good nick but alas, the tan Italian suit look came and went. Do I care?

The textile industry is important to Australia’s economy ($27 billion a year), but it is coming at a cost to the environment. The Guardian attended a meeting at which AFC chief executive, Leila Naja Hibri, admitted that the fashion industry had a “deserved” reputation for its negative impact on the environment.

“There needs to be a change in the way we design, produce, use and dispose of products,” she said.

On top of the huge amount of landfill, the textile industry also relies heavily on fossil fuels and other chemicals. Globally, 98m tonnes of non-renewable resources are used in the fashion industry, including oil to produce synthetic fibres, fertilisers to grow cotton, and chemicals to produce dye.

The Australian Fashion Council (AFC) is leading “a consortium of industry disruptors” to create Australia’s first National Product Stewardship Scheme for clothing textiles. The consortium includes brands, manufacturers, retailers, re-use charities, fibre producers, academics and waste management companies. The goal is to improve the design, recovery, re-use and recycling of textiles (with 2030 in mind), with National Waste Policy Action Plan targets.

The report, funded by the Australian government, said the annual cost to consumers was $9.2bn, meaning Australians were paying on average just $6.50 for each item of clothing.

The AFC has used the report findings to call for a levy on clothing imports to reduce textile waste. At the other end of the fashion cycle, roughly 260,000 tonnes, or 10kg a person, reaches landfill each year, the lead author of the report, Peter Allan, said.

This week I did my bit to help avoid adding textile waste to landfill, dropping off a near-new hoody to a local op shop. Perhaps it was a tight fit to begin with, but a couple of washes later, I’m like a footy player having to get someone to help me don the jersey. As a tape measure-wearing assistant in jeans shop once said (I was 40-something and shopping for a 30-inch waist), – “Um, you used to be a 30-inch waist. Sorry.”

 

 

Country of origin labelling under review

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Image: An example of what some might like to see in revised country of origin labelling: source The Conversation

I discovered only in the last year or so that up to 70% of ham and bacon sold in Australia is imported from Europe or the US. Your regular supermarket no doubt helps out by labelling pork products so you know what you are buying.

For example, ham off the bone is almost always produced in Australia. Cheaper cuts and processed ham and smallgoods may contain up to 70% of imported pork. Australian Pork Limited recently found that 10% of shoppers admitted they failed to check or were unaware of country-of-origin labelling.The survey was carried out to support an awareness campaign in South Australia.

While all fresh pork sourced and sold in Australia is locally grown, Australian Pork Limited CEO Margo Andrae urged shoppers to identify Australian ham and bacon products.

“Consumers should check the bar chart on the country-of-origin label, located under the green and gold kangaroo. The bar chart must be almost full or have a percentage of at least 90% Australian ingredients, to guarantee the pork is Australian.” Australian Pork Limited is one of many organisations which has made submissions to a review in 2020 of the country of origin labelling regime. The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources was aiming to complete its report by July 2021, but so far it has not been publicly released.

Labelling laws were introduced in July 2018, after a furore surrounding a case in 2015 where consumers contracted Hepatitis A from frozen berries imported from China and Chile.

Country of origin (CoOL) labelling requires the food product to contain a label with information stating the percentage (by weight) which is (or is not) Australian made.

For example, a label might read : “Made in Australia from less than 25% Australian ingredients.” The ideal, for those who believe our food is best, are declarations like “made in Australia from 100% Australian ingredients” or “Grown in Australia”.

Consumer organisation Choice, which campaigned for CoOL labelling as early as 2015, also made a submission to the review, voicing concerns aired by subscribers.

“Consumers want to identify whether a product is local or not. However, if a product is not local or has overseas ingredients, consumers want to know the origin of these ingredients. Highlighting the proportion of Australian ingredients does not satisfy the statement ‘country of origin’ nor does it meet consumers’ expectations of food labels. For example, claims such as ‘Made in Australia from at least 25% Australian ingredients’ still leaves consumers in the dark as to where the remaining ingredients come from.”

Other improvements sought by those lobbying the department are to extend labelling to ‘non-priority foods’ which includes biscuits and snack food, confectionery, energy drinks, soft drinks, tea and coffee and bottled water. As you might expect, almost all of the 20,000 Choice subscribers surveyed for this submission said that knowing where the food and drink they buy comes from is important.

More than 90% of respondents use country of origin labelling to make decisions when buying food at the supermarket. About half said they use the labels “frequently” and 40% use it “every time”.

The CoOL scheme is administered by the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC).

When you delve into this topic a little, it does not take long to find that imported foods take up a lot of shelf space in our supermarkets. This is particularly so for the Indian and Asian food shelves and the pasta and sauces section.

For example, when you wheel the trolley (with two wheels veering in opposite directions) into the fish aisle, here’s your dilemma.

Australia dropped out of the canned tuna business a decade ago, finding it too hard to compete with product from South East Asian countries. Countries like Thailand, where most of our canned tuna comes from, have geographical advantages over Australia and a low-cost processing and production chain.

As for canned salmon, sardines and the like, we go top shelf. We may have fallen for the advertising (bears fishing for salmon in fast-flowing Canadian rivers), but we figure the only difference between the pink or red salmon consumed in the wild by bears is that ours comes in a can (and our feet don’t get wet).

According to the Department of Agriculture, 70% of edible fish consumed in Australia is imported from Asia or New Zealand. This may sound arse-about, but Australia exports about half of its annual fisheries and aquaculture production by value ($1.5 billion in 2019-2020). A report by ABARES describes our export trade as “specialising in high unit value products for the growing Asian market”.

“Australia’s reputation as a reliable and high-quality supplier of high unit value fisheries products, and its proximity to Asia’s fast-growing seafood market, generally insulates Australia’s trade in fisheries products from longer-term shocks. The pandemic has caused some disruption to Australia’s usual trade, particularly for products that are highly export oriented, such as rock lobster and abalone.” 

The Buy Australian Made campaign has its adherents, most subscribing to the philosophy that it creates and sustains local jobs. A friend became quite incensed recently on discovering that the can of evaporated milk she had bought was imported from Mexico. Irate, she rang the parent company to complain.

“Why can’t we make it here?” she said (to me).”

She has a point, when you consider that condensed milk is just  dairy milk with the water removed and sugar added.

It wasn’t too hard to find out that we did indeed make both evaporated and condensed milk at a factory in Victoria. The owner, Nestle, announced the phased closure of the factory in August 2019, with the loss of 106 jobs.

General Manager Andrew McIver, reflecting on the decision to close and move production to Nestle’s overseas factories, said: “People just don’t buy tinned milk like they used to, and cheaper imports have eroded our business further.”

Dairy Australia says imported milk comprises about 2% of Australia’s dairy imports, mostly specialty cheeses from New Zealand and Europe.

Should we really care too much about where food comes from? Some years ago, I bought a packet of frozen peas from a supermarket, not even looking or thinking about country origin. I got the bag home and read “Produce of Poland” on the label. Then I checked the map and found that Poland is just 709 kms from Chernobyl, the site of a nuclear plant meltdown in 1986.

Said packet of peas came in handy when I injured my knee (against the corner of my desk), but eventually I threw it away.

There have been enough high profile incidents of food recalls over the years to raise our levels of awareness about the risk of contamination.

Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) says that food recalls averaged 76 a year between 2011 and 2020. While we are all aware of cases where recalled food was contaminated by salmonella, listeria and e coli, these are in the minority.

Almost half of the recalls in 2020 were foods with ‘undeclared allergens’ (e.g. milk, eggs, peanut). Of these recalls, just over half were imported food products. Anyone can sign up to FSANZ to receive food recall alerts

Should you be unfortunate enough to buy a recalled food products before it it removed from the shelf, the advice is to return it to the retailer for a full refund.

Or, like the peas from Poland, you could just chuck it out.

 

One in three Aussie kids have a mobile phone

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Image by FunkyFocus from Pixabay

Is there anything more likely to bring on a panic attack than misplacing your mobile phones? It’s around the house somewhere, isn’t it. You tried calling the number but alas, the battery is flat.

Those of you who cannot bear to be parted with your mobile phone might not know that 33% of Australian children between six and 13 own one. Another 14% of Aussie kids have access to a mobile – for example,  if they are going out alone, Mum might lend them hers. These numbers were collated in 2020 by the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA).

I texted a mother of three to see what’s allowed in her house. We’ll call her Outraged Mother of Three (OMOT). She replied (on one of her 4.4 devices), that all of her kids (Grades 3-8) have phones.

“The youngest has a phone but it is not hooked up to a Sim or Wi-Fi. It was just the spare and now it’s lost.

“Due to excess use of said phones our children now no longer bring the phones to (our weekend retreat). They also have limitations on when they can use their phones.”

If you didn’t know, most Queensland schools do not allow children to use their mobiles during school hours.

OMOT says the main reason her children have phones is purely to be able to contact her, particularly when school is out.

ACMA’s research shows that children primarily use smart phones for playing games, using apps, watching videos, texting and keeping in touch with family/friends.

OMOT said one outcome of her kids having their own phones is they no longer watch TV, preferring YouTube videos.

“They also find it as a really good way to have group chats. Both of my older kids have group phone messaging with their mates from school.”

The impetus for revisiting mobile use in Australia (apart from changing last week’s distressing subject), was a blog I wrote seven years ago. In that column (May 2014), I recounted losing my mobile while on holiday in New Zealand. It was a new phone on a two-year contract, so losing it was a bit of a disaster.

The good news was that a Kiwi out jogging found it lying in the long grass outside my nephew’s house. His enterprising wife looked up the call log and dialled my wife’s mobile (as we were filling up the hire car and looking at travel insurance options). A 20 km detour later I was reunited with my then new android phone.

In 2021, after relying on them during Covid, Australians (and their children), are increasingly bound to their devices. They use them for a wide range of business, personal and entertainment communications. They send and receive emails, send and receive texts, check the odds on the footie, do internet banking and watch videos. They might check in on Facebook and interact with ‘friends’, send PM’s (private messages) to their close friends and maybe watch a music video or two. Very occasionally, they might ring someone up and have a convo (conversation).

The technology is amazing: really, it is. Thirty years ago when you were in a community choir, the choir director handed out printed scores on rehearsal night. The director would have ordered them from a music publisher and then waited weeks until they arrived in the letterbox. Now we can find and download scores (on our phones, even), print them out, and also find (free) audio rehearsal files.

The irony is that few people use the full capabilities of a smart device. I was chatting to a doctor at a barbecue when a helicopter flew overhead.

“That’ll be the rescue helicopter,” she said. She showed me an app on her phone which verified that it was indeed the rescue helicopter. The app showed where it had come from and where it was going (and when it would arrive). That’s no ordinary app, I’ll grant you, but it shows what is possible. In the days when we could travel the world, language apps were all the go. Just wave the phone at the waitress in Tokyo (who would hear a Siri-type voice intoning Shīfūdo ni arerugī ga arimasu (I’m allergic to seafood).

In 2014, when I wrote Hold the Phones, there were 11.9 million smart phones in Australia. Deloitte’s Mobile Nation report showed there were 17.9 million in circulation in 2019. It’s not just smart phones – the average internet user has 4.4 devices they use to interact with the net. The most popular devices were smart TVs, wearable devices and voice-controlled smart speakers.

See how you go with this list (5/8 for me).

  • Australians spend three hours a day using their smartphones;
  • 94% take their phones with them when leaving the house;
  • Almost 25% watch live TV on their phones at least once a week;
  • 23% stream film/TV series weekly;
  • 48% check their mobile phones at least once every 30 minutes;
  • 71% feel safer when they have their phone with them;
  • Just over 90% took at least one active step in on-linesecurity
  • 53% worry about over-reliance/addiction to their devices;

The results of a survey commissioned by ACMA showed that “nearly all Australians” (99%) accessed the internet in the previous six months in 2020 (up from 90% in 2019). I assume this includes the approx 1.7 million or so kids aged 6 to 13.

Nevertheless, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 2.9 million Australians were not on-line because of affordability, location or lack of digital literacy. Who knows how those people struggled last year.

ACMA’s survey (by Roy Morgan) found that Covid lock downs contributed to a significant increase in Internet-based activities. The use of communications apps soared, with 72% of Australian adults using one (up from 63% in 2019). Facebook Messenger was the most popular app (66%), followed by Zoom (43%).

There has been exponential growth in mobile data consumption – 9MB a month in 2018, according to the ABS, but growing at 40% a year.

So yes, the person opposite you staring at a screen on the commuter train is probably catching up on Mare of Easttown. This would account for the lack of eye contact and casual conversation and the panic when she realises she has gone past her stop.

It’s all very well to learn that children are already tech-savvy, but we need to find better ways to connect older Australians to the digital world. A report by the eSafety Commissioner found that  8% of Australia’s 8 million people aged 50 and over are  “digitally disengaged”. This means that 640,000 older Australians (74% of them over 70),  do not use the internet at all. Moreover, 6% of this target group showed no interest at all in improving “digital literacy”.

(By contrast, my 94 year old Godfather began using an Ipad long before I did. Ed)

As this research found, family and friends can play an important part in helping older Australians learn some digital tricks.

It seems like a no-brainer – get those digital-savvy kids to give Oma and Opa a few lessons – after they’ve done their homework, of course.

FOMM Back Pages:

Last week: I’m still not holding my breath.

Return of The Wastemakers

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Image: INESby, pixabay.com

I had a Vance Packard moment this week, thwarting the concept of planned obsolescence, which he wrote about in his 1960 best-seller, The Wastemakers.

My triumph was no big deal, but they were hard-won as I finally, after four weeks, got my 32-year-old Technics stereo system working again.

Before we get into that, and on a similar theme, I would like to have a rant about the complexities and nonsense of Windows 10. Microsoft’s latest operating system deserves inclusion in my seldom-heard song, ‘Windows F*****g 8’, which I wrote in honour of the man who warned me to stick with Windows 7 (…”It isn’t fair, but they don’t care, that I can’t find F*****g Solitaire”….)

When we moved, my 2015 laptop, running on Windows 7, was labouring, crashing, not responding to commands, giving me blue screens and multiple hard drive error messages. My new Lenovo has a lot going for it – extremely light, fast and not too expensive at all. But it came with Windows 10 pre-installed and an infuriating voice-activated robot called Cortana, who offers to solve any problem but more often will say “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.”

So Mr Microsoft, why did you dump Windows 7 (which, after this month will no longer be supported). in favour of an operating system that tried to look like Apple Mac and failed? Just like Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1, it has so many bugs you do so yearn for good old Windows XP. IT companies constantly upgrade and invent new software and gadgets. The manufacturers of computers, smart phones, mobile entertainment and all their peripherals have no choice, if they want to stay in business, but to continue selling us flawed ‘upgrades’.  In the case of Windows 10, Microsoft forced us into it by withdrawing support for Windows 7.

Windows forums have a lot to say about 10, its dodgy updates and other shortcomings. The most irritating thing is the assumption (by Microsoft) that you will take up the expensive annual subscriptions to pre-installed software trials and store all your personal data in the cloud, at a cost, of course. After some reading, I managed to install Office 2010, which I bought and paid for once already.

The good news is there are plenty of ‘fixes’ out there for Windows 10 glitches. I found one key piece of advice (not from Microsoft). In Windows 7 I used the ‘recent documents’ link constantly. It was easily found under documents/folders. Windows 10 has done away with this useful tool.

Solution: use the keystroke Windows key/e. Thank me later.

She Who Also Has Windows 10 is now regretting asking me to upgrade her laptop. The worst part of upgrading was that (initially) we could not get the printer to work, or the network sharing we previously employed.

There is now a security feature called Network Credentials which requires you to enter your Microsoft outlook name and password if indeed you succumb to that malware-type exhortation. That only took me three hours to fix – to whom should I send the invoice?

Nevertheless, if you still have Windows 7 and it decides to stop working, you will be in trouble. The good news, if you are game, is that Microsoft’s free upgrade is still available (rather than buying it for $169). Not that I recommend it, but here is the link I used to download and install Windows F*****g 10 on SWAHWT’s laptop.

Vance Packard saw all that coming, three decades before personal and business computers became a mainstream, multi-billion dollar industry. Packard was well ahead of his time, writing a number of thoughtful books about consumerism and the stealthy way the industrial-military complex manipulates people to its own greedy ends.

The thesis Packard pursued in The Wastemakers is deftly summarised in an article found on Trove.

The author of The Hidden Persuaders and The Status Seekers analysed over-production and the planned obsolescence of so-called consumer durables.

“The average American family throws away about 750 metal cans each year,” he began. “In the Orient, a family lucky enough to gain possession of a metal can treasures it and puts it to work in some way, if only as a flower pot.”

Packard claimed that in 1960s America “each individual man, woman and child was using up to an average of eighteen tons of materials a year”.

The concept of eternal growth which developed after WWII required “insidious promotion and worship of ‘consumerism’ the encouragement of waste, the temptations of encouragement of waste and the temptations of limitless H.P (hire purchase).”

Sixty years after Packard published his book, consumerism and the advertising that encourages it is no less insidious. Rampant and shameless consumerism suggests that anything “used” is shaming to its owner.

“The escalation of self-indulgence and the planned chaos leaves the buyer bewildered and helpless amid that shambles of phoney price-cuts, sales prices, special discounts etc.”

 

As people often do when moving, we purchased some new consumer ‘durables’, well aware that the generic 12-month warranties suggested a limited life span.

Meanwhile, the Technics stereo system, bought from one of Brisbane’s Brashes stores in 1986, was still sitting in carefully packed boxes in the garage. Sure, I was listening to MP3s on my Bluetooth speaker, but it is so not the same.

The Technics system was top of its class in 1986 and still performs well. It has seven individual components all interlinked by a maze of cables and power cords (one feeds the other until finally, one goes to AC power).

The problem this time with installation was (a) delving through the five manuals to remember how to reconnect everything and (b) the speaker leads were too short. They were always too short, but in our previous home it was never a problem.

I am not, as you’d know, not the world’s most practical chap. But I’m stubborn (and cheap). I turned to YouTube’s host of geeky how-to videos. What I wanted to do was work out how to extend the stereos leads, which is hard to do when said speakers are sealed boxes which offer no easy way to replace leads.

The first video I found (1:47) when searching ‘how to open sealed speaker cabinets’ is a classic example of why you can sometimes find helpful hints, and sometimes not!

After I stopped laughing and explored some other more useful options, I went into town and bought a 6m roll of 14 gauge speaker cable and some electrical tape. I used a box cutter and a pair of pliers to hand-cut the cable into two lengths, stripped 1cm of plastic off both ends of each cable and then used electrical tape to connect the longer leads to the short speaker cables. As such jobs go, it is not pretty. But it works.

I finished setting up the system about 11pm and rewarded myself with a cup of tea, listening to Homeless, a vinyl album by Ladysmith Black Mambazo.  As you may recall, the acapella African choir’s music formed the basis of Paul Simon’s amazing 1986 album, Graceland. Simon’s song Homeless is track 1, side one. Of course I fell asleep listening to side two and never got to flip the album over.

The really good news is there are a few hundred more vinyl albums in boxes in the garage. (Ed: Not that we have anywhere to store them).

Black Friday and a spot of retail therapy

Black-Friday-retail
“Get in there, damn it’ – Image by Sean Leahy

We who have always associated ‘Black Friday’ with Friday the 13th (unlucky for some), were no doubt confused by the retail rallying call of the past week.

According to McCrindle Research, the US concept of Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), is gaining traction in Australia.  Back in 2017, a McCrindle survey showed that 1 in 4 (24%) of Australians had never heard of Black Friday. Two years on, only 6% of Australians have never heard of Black Friday. This year’s research showed that almost 45% of respondents were going to take advantage of sales and discounts.

In the US, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), is a signal for 100 million Americans to walk off their turkey dinners and go shopping.  Americans typically spend more than US$50 billion on this one day.

She Who Researches Before Buying was following me around one of Brisbane’s biggest retail barns on Sunday. The shopping list was (1) a smart TV (2) a portable air conditioner (3) a microwave (4) a vacuum cleaner and (5) an entertainment unit. SWRBB had decided that only item 2 was needed immediately. Things changed once we entered the blissfully chilled domain of a category killer retailer (when I say chilled I refer to the room temperature, not the ambient noise level).

We’d done a bit of research into items 1 and 2, so were quickly persuaded by the price of the short-listed TVs (both $250 below the RRP). Those of you who shop early and often will know that RRP stands for recommended retail price. Since the majority of such items began to emerge from factories in China, very few retailers insist upon RRP. I’m not privy to the wholesale figures, but it’s a fair bet that 30% off something made in China still allows the retailer to make a profit.

This might be a good time to confess that my One And Only (O&O) and I, to borrow a term of endearment from blogger Kathryn Johnston, are the most sales-resistant people outside of hard-core hippies and those with no cash or credit. When we buy big-ticket retail items, the drill is that I produce my credit card and between us we pay the balance off at the end of the month. Did I mention we had earlier bought two ceiling fans from a lighting sales room which cried out ‘while you are here’ ?

Back at the big barn front counter, after resisting attempts to have us upgrade to a five-year warranty, I noticed a sign warning buyers that TVs 55 inches or bigger may not fit into a normal vehicle. Time to tell us now.

After heading to despatch behind the enormous tilt-slab warehouse, we encountered a fit-looking guy who checked out the vehicle. He suggested we move this here and that there and let the back seats down. Between us we got the 55 inch TV into the vehicle, leaning it on the portable air conditioner (itself a substantial package) the two fans, an esky, two folding chairs, a bag of dog crunchies and a yoga mat. Wisely, we left the microwave, entertainment unit and vacuum cleaner for another day, vowing to shop locally.

In relating this rare venture into retail sales, I am more aware than ever that while the car park was full and people were milling about purposefully, the latest studies on consumer confidence suggest the retail sector is in recession. Even the most bullish retailers concede they are unlikely to set new spending records this month. I genuinely wish it were different, as a few people I know work in retail (and a few more that work part-time).

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index fell by more than 5% in October to 92.8 points, the lowest reading since July 2015. A reading of 100 sits on the barbed wire fence between optimism and pessimism. Even though the index bounced back (up 45% in November to 97.0), the survey authors say the mood is still downbeat as we enter the Christmas shopping month. Another long-running survey, the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence index, is at a four-year low of 106.8. The index averaged 114.4 this year, down 3.5% from 118.5 in 2018.

The weekly survey also showed a 1.5% drop in the numbers of respondents who thought they were better off at the same time last year.

Australia has its own economic quirks, but it is interesting to note that similar surveys in the US have been on the slide since August.

As the Australian Financial Review’s Sue Mitchell reminded us, Harvey Norman chief executive Katie Paige warned back in August that the government’s tax cuts were unlikely to stimulate retail spending. A concurrent ATO crackdown on individual and business taxpayers prompted small businesses and consumers to keep their heads down (meaning to avoid being involved in something/anything).

Retail sales have been in a trough all year, despite the Reserve Bank’s optimistic forecast of a “gentle turning point” for the economy.

When working as a business writer in the late 1980s and 1990s, I researched retail sales trends, because they often foreshadowed upturns (or downturns) in the economy. The AFR’s Sue Mitchell was specialising in this sector in that era and she’s still there!

So when she tells you retail sales figures have recorded the biggest fall since the 1990-91 recession, you might want to pay attention. Year on year sales growth has slowed from 3.7% in September 2018 to 2.5% in September this year, Mitchell reported. Sales volumes fell 0.1% in the quarter and by 0.2% over the past 12 months.

Super Retail Group chief executive Anthony Heraghty told the AFR the sector was volatile.

“Customers are up and down and you’ll see a couple of good weeks and then a week that’s not so impressive,” Heraghty said. (This might be the right place to disclose that the Cheeseparer Superannuation Fund recently bought shares in Super Retail Group, which owns Rebel, Supercheap Auto, BCF and Macpac.)

The irony for Australian retailers is that the seemingly endless cycle of discount days has created an expectation that the RRP is permanently up for negotiation.

Conservative people who rarely lash out on ‘stuff’ will put their must-buy list aside and wait for the Boxing Day sales. Or the Back to School, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, End of Financial Year, Father’s Day, Singles Day, Click Frenzy, Halloween, Black Friday, Cyber Monday or pre-Christmas sales. Hurry, hurry, all stock must go.

I’ll leave the last word to The Chaser’s 2007 spoof,’ ‘Killer Persian Rug Sale’. This 45-second mock ad was one of many such over the top send-ups of Australia’s fast-talking television retail sales arena.

“Must sell by midnight or die”.

Today’s illustration is by cartoonist Sean Leahy, one of Queensland’s best-known artists.

https://www.facebook.com/leahycartoons/

Canned muzak takes away listener choice

canned-muzak
Image by Naobim/pixabay.com

Today I’m keen to vent my displeasure at the seemingly inescapable intrusion of canned music – known as muzak. Background music in public places was once described by violinist Yehudi Menuhin as ‘pollution of the mind’. Menuhin, the consummate classical soloist, led a campaign in the late 1960s to have muzak banned from shopping malls and other public spaces. Muzak is a company set up in the 1950s which produced pre-recorded background music and sold it to shopping malls, restaurants and other public spaces. Muzak was sold to Westinghouse in 1981, then to the publishers of the Chicago Sun-Times and sold again to Mood Music in 2011. Although often known as ‘elevator music’ for its pernicious blandness, Muzak (the company) never actually sold it to lift companies. Muzak was so pervasive in the 1960s and 1970s it became a lower case term for light music of generic sameness).

For my part, I endured it all day every day when employed by supermarkets. There’s a lot of difference, let me tell you, between sub-consciously listening to what Alistair Cooke called ‘audible wallpaper’ while doing a 20-minute shop and being forced to listen from 8.30am to 5pm, five or six days a week. In 1975 I wrote an offensive song about muzak. I didn’t play guitar then, so a friend helped orchestrate my first foray into songwriting and performed it at the Brisbane Folk Centre. There were references to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana brass (This guy’s in love with you), Andy Williams (More), Acker Bilk (Stranger on the shore) and Henry Mancini (Moon River).

From my memory of working in retail, Muzak’s selection of the month was delivered as a reel of tape and was then wound into a reel-to-reel recorder securely locked in a box on the wall of the office.

Fast forward to 2019 and our ears are constantly assaulted by bland music, wirelessly emanating from tiny speakers tucked into the roofs of establishments ranging from coffee shops to football stadiums. I’m not privy to how the music at sports venues is broadcast, but let me give the NRL and even the Intrust Super Cup organisers a bit of feedback – and I mean that literally too.

Various codes of sport feel compelled to fill in any break in play with partial renditions of songs, at peak volume. At the Intrust Super Cup final at Redcliffe, the volume was so deafening, the choice of music (hip-hop, pop, rock, reggae) so ad hoc, that just about anyone within earshot of us began berating the invisible DJ.

The music starts when play has broken down (for an injury or a penalty), and is abruptly cut off when play resumes (just as you were getting in the groove). A snippet of Van Halen or ACDC, bless them, adds nothing to the game, especially when the music is reverberating around metal and concrete grandstands.

Mood music seems to have gone up in standard since my days of listening to Up Up and Away for the seventh time in a working day. Muzak’s 2019 owner, Mood Media, offers a wide range of genres to its clients and I have no doubt about the quality.

My main argument with unsolicited music streamed in public places is just that – it is unsolicited and, rather than put me in a good mood, it does the reverse.

We were having dinner at a city restaurant recently which streamed its own brand of muzak, distributed around a relatively small space. It was not my imagination – the volume increased as the night wore on. I was going to ask someone to turn it down (have been known to do this). But on a trip to the loo I realised the same music was being streamed through all the neighbouring restaurants.

A barista once showed me where his canned music came from – it was one of a set of CDs called Café Music. I asked him did it not get irritating for those who work there.

“After a while you don’t notice it,” he replied. And that is just the point. Mood music is in the background – able to be heard but not intended to be listened to.

George Winter, writing for the Irish Times, described his experience of ‘aural Polyfilla’ while having coffee in a shopping mall.

“Muzak pollutes the air, befouling the connections between one rational thought and another until I begin to think that it probably would be a good idea to buy a tie-rack for the cat.”

Winter recalled October 1969, when Yehudi Menuhin addressed Unesco’s International Music Council.

“Our world has become a sounding board for man-made sounds, amplified to suffuse and suffocate us,” Menuhin said, in part.

The Council had muzak in mind when it denounced “the intolerable infringement of individual freedom” and asserted “the right of everyone to silence, because of the abusive use, in private and public places, of recorded or broadcast music.”

Winter concluded with the observation that as Ireland had banned smoking in pubs, why not ban muzak too?

He cited Professor Stuart Sim’s Manifesto for Silence, where Sims comments on background music not only in malls and restaurants but in pubs.

“It is a deliberate policy on the management’s part. The noise helps to create a frenzied, over-stimulated atmosphere which promotes evermore frenzied consumption.”

Prof Sims’s 2007 manifesto, subtitled Confronting the Politics and Culture of Noise, makes an urgent demand for silence. In the introduction to his book, he sees it as a tussle between those who want more noise (as in the oft-repeated anonymous command of ‘make some noise’ when attending footie games) and those who want none.

“Lifting the ban on mobile phones on planes has opened up a new front in this conflict,” he wrote.

If you have ever been to sacred spaces like Uluru, Notre Dame, the Vatican or the ancient cathedral at Assisi, unwanted background music becomes apparent by its absence.I have oft times wondered if the people you see on trains and buses with listening buds in their ears are (a) listening to something they want to listen to or (b) shutting out the madding crowd with meditative music.It could all be completely wrong, because those on the outside cannot know what is being heard on the inside. That’s the beauty of choosing what to listen to and when.

Academic studies have been done on whether or not students write better essays when listening to music. This survey, trialled with 54 psychology students, concluded that it disrupted writing fluency, although those with music training and/or high working memory wrote better essays with longer sentences.

Likewise, studies have been done to examine the effect of background music in open plan offices (used to mask ambient sound and background conversations). Hmm, is that accountant over there listening to Céline Dion or is he wearing noise cancelling headphones?

As a songwriter, the biggest problem I have with unsolicited background music is that they never introduce or back-announce the track. So on the slight chance a song might sound familiar; you are never going to know. The upside for songwriters is that if your music is used as ‘aural Polyfilla’, the royalty cheques will keep on dribbling in. As I added up my royalty income for the October 31 tax deadline, it became crystal clear I am not and never will be one of those.

The Sound of Silence https://youtu.be/NAEppFUWLfc

PS: As this essay argues, listening to music should be a matter of personal choice. So click or don’t click on this splendid rendition by She Who Sings (aka Laurel Wilson), of Un Bel Di Vedremo from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. https://youtu.be/WCQEhgpb-qM

Demise Of The Fixed-Line Home Phone

fixed-line-phones
Australian Communications and Media Authority Communications report 2017–18.

The landline is ringing. A saxophone riff from a Men at Work song plays in my head (‘who can it be now?’). Despite my better judgement, I pick up. It goes something like this. (Pause) “This is Nicole from Australian National Broadband. We have been trying to get in touch with you as we are soon going to disconnect your landline, Press 1 now to speak to a technician.”

I don’t press 1 and after 5 seconds the call disconnects. Poor Nicole (and apologies to the two women I know named Nicole). She has been robo calling our number without success for at least 18 months. How will you describe that on your CV, Nicole? (2018-2019: scam robo call voiceover).

Once again, synchronicity strikes. Just when I decided to write about the demise of the landline, I see it is National Scam Awareness Week (August 12-16). There are serious reasons for raising awareness of telephone and internet scams, as they are costing Australians about $1 billion a year.

Scamwatch estimates that NBN scams alone are ripping $110,000 a month from people who should have tuned in for NSAW last year (when the figure was $37,000 a month).

Few real people call our landline these days. Like everyone I surveyed for this essay, we average about 15 telemarketing calls or phone scams per week. They are often the 6.50pm calls, just as you are sitting down to eat. It’s someone in an offshore call centre, trying to sell you something. Most people just hang up.

My elder sister in New Zealand always calls the landline, as does John, our oldest friend in the village. They belong to a cohort who does not have mobile phones. They persist, some would say depend on, the dying communication form of a fixed copper wire telephone line.

The 2017-2018 report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said that 36% (6.7 million) of Australians have scrapped their fixed home phone line and rely on a mobile service. Some may also have a VoIP (voice over internet protocol) phone as part of their National Broadband Network deal. There is one vital difference between a landline and VoIP. The major issue with a ‘landline’ that comes with an NBN package is that it stops working when you have a power failure. (This is also the case for a hands-free phone plugged into the power, rather than a dedicated phone wired into the wall).

The latter still works when there is a blackout – you can ring Fred on the other side of town to see if his power is out too. Useful stuff like that.

Nevertheless, fixed-line use declined 7% in 2017-2018, continuing a long-term trend (although 10m people still have one).  One could suggest that people are letting go of their landlines in favour of mobiles and reducing their monthly phone/internet bill. I suspect people no longer trust their landline. As FOMM reader John No 1 said: “The value of the telephone as a means of communication is being diminished because it is impossible to know if a caller is genuine…”

Meanwhile, eight out of 10 Australians own a smartphone – 64% more than five years ago. A smart phone is infinitely more useful than a one-function landline. Smart phones users can make voice calls, send texts or use apps for messaging or voice /video calls). And, as we all know, you can browse the internet, watch streaming TV, make videos, take pictures of your cat to put on Facebook, use it as a compass or a navigation device, tune your guitar, turn it into a metronome or use it as an alarm clock.

A few FOMM readers responded to my question: why do you still have a landline? John No 2 (no mobile), says he wants to stay with a fixed-line phone because mobile reception is poor where he lives. He is also a bit peeved that after paying for a silent number, he still gets nuisance calls.  Another reader told me she uses her landline exclusively for her counselling service so she can be ‘present’ (as opposed to being out and about and distracted if a client calls on the mobile).

Ian says he ended up with a VoIP phone when he changed to the NBN, but neither he nor Mrs Ian uses it, mainly because Telstra/Optus were unable to transfer his old number. They prefer to use mobiles, as they had been doing for years before NBN showed up. Ian says that until the change was forced upon him, he’d had a landline (and the same Telstra number), for 33 years.

I tend to avoid using the home phone, instead favouring text messages. She Who Likes To Talk To People always tries calling first.

“What’s the point,” I say. “It will just go to voice mail or they will get a garbled 10-second text message transcribed from voice.”

Example: “It’s Nog here, I be roundson to pick up cheers.”

The ease of text messaging (and the fast response when you use the Facebook app Messenger), has lulled us into a world where we communicate primarily by text and email (both formats which can be easily misinterpreted), in lieu of actually talking to each other.

A while ago, I realised this form of communication was the equivalent of holing up in the castle and sending a messenger on horseback to tell Princess Desiree in yonder palace that she is the fairest in the land.

Who would know if the fair damsel received the gilded message and what happened next (mayhap she was smitten by the messenger and they rode off together into the darkening forest (cue Game of Thrones theme).

Yes, so I decided I would have a telephone conversation with someone every week. I’m behind schedule, but I have excuses.

It is probably fair in National Scam Awareness Week to observe that mobile phone users are also plagued by scam calls, robo calls and telemarketers. Nevertheless, Australians continue their love affair with mobile technology. In Australia, there are now 34.54 million mobile services in operation, compared with 31.09 million in 2013, the last time I wrote on this topic. ACMA says the volume of data downloaded on mobile networks increased fivefold between 2014 and 2018. We can probably attribute a lot of it to Netflix (50% of Australians have a subscription), and Stan (13%).

The relatively slow growth in new mobile use suggests demand has peaked. Still, that’s about 10 million more mobiles than there are people. Given this huge target market, it seems likely the scammers and hard-sell merchants will keep finding sinister new ways to catch us off guard.

Robo calls are as big a problem in the US as the opioid crisis, mass shootings and Donald Trump. The regulators have been pressing the telecommunications industry to do something about it since 2014. In response, the industry has developed a solution to stop robo calls and ‘spoofing’. The latter refers to criminals and unscrupulous people altering the calling number of their outbound calls in order to deceive the person receiving the call. For example, the call may show up in your caller ID as your neighbour or a relative. The industry has invented a new technology standard to defeat spoofing and has given it an intriguing name based on two acronyms – STIR/SHAKEN.

Sounds like something you’d order at the bar when taking Miss Moneypenny on a date.

Further reading FOMM back pages: https://bobwords.com.au/friday-on-my-mind/

One person’s rubbish another’s treasure

kerbside-rubbish-collection-treasure
Kerbside rubbish in Stirling WA, photo by Henry Kujda https://flic.kr/p/bNqCRz

During a recent stay in a Brisbane bayside suburb, a kerbside rubbish collection was in the offing. You could tell by the untidy piles of trash lining the footpaths of suburban streets. On my daily dog walks, I became aware of a steady stream of cars with trailers doing the rounds, beating Council trucks to the treasure.

Scavenging from kerbside collections is a time-honoured tradition. Whole generations have furnished their share houses with the kerbside rejects from other people’s homes. We are talking here of household items too big to fit into a wheelie bin, but none so large two people could not lift them. So a fridge is OK, a barbecue (sans gas bottle) probably OK. The large dead limb off the ghost gum that fell on the shed is probably not OK. Most Councils have lists of items you can leave on the kerb and things that won’t be collected (like old tyres, fuel cans, pesticide spray containers, gas bottles, fire extinguishers and so on). Anything made of MDF will probably be left for Council to collect, especially if it rains before collection day.

I helped my brother-in-law carry surplus items to the kerb (an old office chair, a baby’s car seat, a single foam mattress, a dismantled bed frame, a (new) security window frame and so on). No sooner had items been placed by the kerb, a car and trailer would pull up and the driver would start throwing things into the trailer.

Further up the road the same thing was going on, with a certain frisson of tension between scavenging crews. In some ways, it seemed singularly distasteful and desperate, on the other hand, why would we care – we were the ones throwing the crap out.

As part of its War on Waste series, the ABC’s Alle McMahon looked into how different States and Territories viewed the practice of kerbside scavenging. For example, the ACT only provides kerbside collections for seniors and concession card holders. As such, it is illegal to leave items out on the verge or nature strip.

The City of Sydney carefully states: “Our legal advice is that anyone who picks up items left outside for bulky waste pick up is doing so at their own risk.”

As the saying goes: Caveat Emptor, or in this instance, Seminiverbius Emptor.

There are signs that some Councils are abandoning kerbside collections in favour of recycling stations at their local landfill. Up to 60% of waste collected in Australian is recycled, although more than 20 million tonnes of solid waste per year goes to landfill.

While the independent Noosa Shire Council still has a kerbside collection every year, the neighbouring Sunshine Coast Regional Council dumped the practice, which it deemed to be “outdated and environmentally harmful”.

Free annual kerbside collections stopped once the Sunshine Coast Councils amalgamated in 2008, but there has been some pressure to resume. Noosa Shire de-amalgamated and started kerbside collections again, the two Councils tabling vastly differing sums as to the cost of kerbside collections.

Cr Jenny McKay told FOMM she had always been a supporter of the kerbside collection concept but other councillors and staff disagreed for a number of reasons.

“A low percentage of people across the region actually take up the offer, thus making the cost per property very expensive.”

Cr McKay pointed out the council waived fees on some large items (e.g mattresses), when taken to waste facilities.

Early January is the traditional time for household clean-ups. We all warm to the task as a result of disposing of after-Christmas detritus, including careful disposal of prawn shells; the merry rattle of bottles and cans being tumbled into the recycling bin.

But all too often the cycle of change signalled by January 1 prompts people to revisit concepts of decluttering and downsizing, adding specific items to their New Year resolutions.

January often signals the impending departure of the elder child to university or the workforce. If said child is leaving home, there is often a recycling of family junk; the student gets the old fridge and the non-smart TV while the parents go to a department store and buy brand-new everything.

For older people, children long gone and developing their own hoarding habits, it becomes a tussle between feeling comfortable with the familiar and needing to let go for reasons of space and relevance.

Empty-nesters and retirees contemplating a move to a smaller living pace have a different set of problems. If they are moving from a four-bedroom house to a two-bedroom unit, then they will need to get rid of two sets of bedroom furniture as a bare minimum.

The options are: hold a garage sale, list the items on Gumtree or your favourite Facebook free ads site, donate them to charities like the Salvation Army or Lifeline. In many locations, the bigger charities will come and collect the items.

If you are in a state of flux and need to store your household goods for a while, there are no shortages of businesses ready to rent you a lockable storage space.

The self-storage industry large warehouses housing hundreds of lockable storage units – is a $1 billion+ business in Australia, busier than ever as more people relocate from large houses to small units.

But just as EBay and Gumtree disrupted the second-hand store sector, the digital sharing world has caught up with self-storage.

Spacer.com.au acts as a broker for people wanting to store personal belongings, hooking them up with citizens who have spare rooms or garages.

Spacer co-founder Mike Rosenbaum explained what his then year-old business was aiming to do in an article for Domain. Spacer’s customers are typically looking to store household goods, business stock or large items like recreational vehicles, sporting equipment or even nursery items.

“What we’re finding is [extra storage] allows people to live the lifestyle they want to live – typically close to the city or closer to amenities,’ Rosenbaum said.

The average user spends about $250 a month renting space, which typically pays for a single lock-up garage in Sydney or Melbourne.

Spacer now claims to be the largest renter of storage space in Australia, with more than 30,000 units.

The bottom line for anyone who is paying to store household goods off-site is whether the outlay (over the time kept in storage), exceeds the cost of replacement.

For those whose circumstances demand that they scour suburban streets to claim household items ahead of what is sometimes called Hard Rubbish Day, that debate is completely academic.

The Band Who Knew Too Much summed up the life of kerbside scavengers in their pithy song Hard Rubbish Night in Kew.

“This tele’s just a beauty, it’s just like the one at Mum’s, it’ll be great for watching footie; though it’s missing just one leg, I suppose I’ll have to watch it from the broken rocking chair.”

Happy New Year to all FOMM readers, wherever you are.

 

 

Planned obsolescence strikes again

On Tuesday I joined the queue of people at the local computer shop, all clutching laptops, smart phones or PC peripherals suffering from planned obsolescence syndrome. Some of these items may still have been under warranty (joy). But in the case of my four-year-old Toshiba laptop, the optical drive, the fragile looking tray that slides out to take CDs or DVDs, had carked it.

It failed just as I finished burning a 58 minute video of our choir Tapestry’s Christmas performance. “Do you want to burn another?’ the video editing programme asked. “Yes” I clicked and the optical drive then made a noise like the dentist burnishing my teeth with plaque-stripping paste.

The young chap behind the counter (they’re all young), spent some time testing then pronounced it dead. “We have plug and play drives for about $50,” he said. “But we haven’t any in stock at the moment.”

Ah, so this is a frequent event in computer repairs and replacement land. A google search of ‘CD DVD drive failed’ brought a consensus that an optical drive in a laptop will rarely last five years.

A recent article in Lifewire explained why so many desktop computers and laptops sold today do not have CD or DVD drives installed. They are being dropped to save space and also because portable flash drives and hard drives have more capacity, perform faster and are definitely cheaper than sourcing a replacement optical drive (which includes an hour of labour to remove the old and install the new).

A while ago, I gave a copy of our latest CD to someone who has been helping me retrieve my sense of perspective. Last time I saw him he confessed not to have listened to it yet, the problem being he had nothing on which to listen to a CD except his (work) laptop which, I suspect, is never used for anything other than work. CD players are becoming obsolete. If you still have one and it has started to misbehave, it probably won’t be worth repairing. Most late model cars don’t have CD players, preferring USB, WiFi and Bluetooth to extract music from the ether.

Like so many Millenials in Australia, most of my younger relatives in New Zealand have Bluetooth speakers,which play (compressed) music streamed from their phones or tablets.

“I couldn’t find you on Spotify, Uncle,” said one.

Let’s examine the logic here. The average lifespan of a laptop computer ($400 to $1,800) is three to five years. Bluetooth speakers ($40 to $1,000) have not been around long enough for lifespans to be established,but there’s an amusing exchange on techguy.org about this very subject “until it stops working”, one wag offers. Two years seems to be the current guess, and that is largely based on the lifespan of the battery (some of which are replaceable, and some not). And don’t even start me on mobile phones (I’m on my third one in four years).

 The trick might be to buy top quality gear in the first place. One of the five components in my Technics stereo (a top line model, circa 1985 – before planned obsolescence became widespread), is showing signs of failure. The CD changer plays OK but then inexplicably stops, or skips to another track or to the middle of another track. In the office downstairs I usually play music through computer speakers from my iTunes library.  ITunes and streaming services compress music, the downside being an unavoidable degradation of audio quality. The advantage for musicians in compressing a 24MB audio file to a 2MB MP3 that can be emailed is obvious. I once emailed a demo to London at 10pm our time, to a songwriter friend who listened to it over morning coffee and sent immediate feedback.

The convenience and the speed with which music can be recorded and disseminated (and listened to on a virtual jukebox), outweighs the loss of sonic integrity.

Or you can reject planned obsolescence and go retro. One of my relatives has a quality audio system which is set up to play vinyl. There was just something so real about the velvety voice of Marlon Williams coming out of those speakers that made a mockery of my MP3 version of the same album.

Aotearoa has had a long love affair with vinyl records. EMI produced the first one from its Wellington factory in 1955 (the WinifredAtwell selection). The last vinyl record production unit closed in 1987 and EMI shipped the hardware to Australia. Many Kiwi (and Australian) artists still produce vinyl versions of their music for those who have fallen in love with or rediscovered the quality of analogue sound. A few pressing plants keep the faith, including Peter King’s King Worldwide in Ashburton (NZ) and Zenith Records in Melbourne.

As Ted Goslin writes, when explaining why vinyl is making a comeback (14m copies sold in the US alone last year); it’s become cool. Half of those buying vinyl are millennials, although 27% are over 35, buying new albums or raiding their baby boomer parents’ LP collections. 

But as we established, the immediacy of digital music is its strength. Someone once emailed me the words to an amusing parody of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now, “I burnt the toast on both sides now” is funny and somehow sacrilegious, the perfect foil to slide into a broader discussion about planned obsolescence.

A friend had a toaster given to her in 1971 which had spring-loaded ‘gates’ on both sides. Although she has since bought a four-slice, pop-up toaster, the old one still works and is brought out sometimes to remind us of the days when a lot of kitchen work was not automated. Some even washed dishes by hand.

According to a blog in The Spruce, a toaster should last six to eight years. When you think about it, there’s not much to a toaster and it only has to do one job. Choice Magazine said just this when handing out one of its Shonky Awards to the (RRP $189) KitchenAid2 two-slice toaster, to which Choice gave a score of 0. The testers even took it back and got a replacement with the same poor result. Choice branded it a ‘pricey paperweight’.

We’re familiar with consumer goods which don’t come up to scratch and it’s not always a case of getting what you paid for. At FOMM HQ we’re on our third microwave in five years and this one appears to be rusting on the bottom. The Spruce blog reckons a microwave will see out nine years, a slow cooker and a coffee machine six to 10 years and a vacuum cleaner eight years. Writer Lauren Abrams say much depends on the quality of the appliance, how often you use it and how well you look after it.

The toaster in our caravan, now in its third year, gets a wipe over every three months or so and, like the house toaster, the crumb tray gets emptied at least once a year! It was an impulse buy ($7 from a Goondiwindi discount department store). It works just fine so long as I adjust the timer (if She Who Toasts Gluten-Free Bread has been there first).

In the words of Canberra parodist Chris Clarke:

I’ve burnt the toast on both sides now,
Both front and back – to charcoal black,
The toasting time I don’t recall,
I really can’t make toast, after all.

More reading:

The Waste Makers: Vance Packard (1960)

Made to Break: Giles Slade (2007)

Fixing your PC with a hairdryer