Speculative Stock Portfolio

barney said:

Is that grass growing all over the building in Pic 1 ?
Must be a nightmare for the window cleaners

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Zaxon said:

That's what I thought! It looks like an abandoned building that's let go to ruin. Also, the other before and after pics don't even seem related to each other. Here is a very close up of a pile of garbage. Here is suddenly a massive road by the beach. Riiiiight.

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sptrawler said:

Recycling is a huge issue, but many have tried and failed, to make money out of it. No matter which way you look at it, if it had any value it wouldn't be in landfill, it is labour intensive to sort and when you have sorted it there is very little demand for it.
I keep looking at Cleanaway, but I just can't get excited, so that in itself probably means it is a screaming buy.
They are talking about building a high temp incinerator, to burn the stuff and make electricity, but that usually ends up in tears for one reason or another.
Just my opinion.

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aus_trader said:

So if the big end of the waste management companies can be innovative to find solutions to recycle more of the waste, I think they are in a position to benefit.

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sptrawler said:

If they don't come up with a solution, who in the end get to keep the recycling, eventually the landfills will stop taking it?

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Zaxon said:

I think the longer term solution is to create non-plastic polymers. A polymer is a substance made from a long chain of similar units, and doesn't have to come from oil. "Plastics" that are made from non oil products, actually break down fairly easily. I saw a documentary on a company in India, that makes disposable plates and cutlery out of corn starch converted to a polymer. You eat your meal as per usual. You can even eat the plate and cultery afterwards. This could be done for shopping bags, and really most "plastics" that are used shorter term. Keep oil based plastic for things that need to last.

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sptrawler said:

If they don't come up with a solution, who in the end get to keep the recycling, eventually the landfills will stop taking it?

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aus_trader said:

Maybe we can adopt brown paper bags like in the US which are completely biodegradable compared to plastic bags.

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Zaxon said:

For sure! Americans have been asked "paper or plastic" for as long as I can remember. Australian supermarkets can't use the excuse "paper bags are so hard to get in bulk", because apparently a whole country has access to them.

When I was growing up, we had paper bags in Australian supermarkets that could stand up on their own, and allow you to easily fill them. Apparently, this ancient technology is now long lost.

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aus_trader said:

Funny thing is this ancient technology seems to be coming back, since Woolies are just about to trial them here:

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aus_trader said:

I will be supportive of innovative companies that can reduce the waste material from being produced in the first place, then recycling will be a breeze. Will be happy to invest in such companies as well.

Maybe we can adopt brown paper bags like in the US which are completely biodegradable compared to plastic bags.

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Miner said:

Back in shiny youthful days, we used to have paper packets made of recycled newspapers. For heavy materials the shop keepers used to make them double bags. Slightly expensive items or fancy shops used to provide brown paper bags. There were many poor people survived by making paper bags from recycled papers and selling those bags to shops. No plastic bags. Yes, mobile phone and internet were not discovered either. Then came the plastic and plastic bags. Ironically USA even without signing the Paris treaty, has been using paper bags for long time.
In minesites, they are offering recyclable plastic bags. Unfortunately many of the miners are forgetting to recycle them and treating as one off use - just lazy and useless people - and 90% are doing the same.
Unless we are mentally conscious, and making effort in leading by examples to others and our children - we would ruin the planet more and more.

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aus_trader said:

I am not a Greenie, but I do try to do the little things to help with the environment. The way I see it, if everyone does a little bit, it would make a world of difference.

So the little things that I tend to do is to sort out the rubbish and recycle materials at home to make sure they go into the appropriate bins. Compost some of the organic materials such as fruit and veg leftovers by feeding them to the worms in the garden, pick up the odd bit of rubbish especially if it's a plastic bag and dispose of it before it ends up in the drains and eventually in the sea and choke the life out of a 100 year old turtle or some other creature. And if and when I am at the beach in the summer, I always try to remember to pick up a few bits of plastics or other non-decaying bits of rubbish e.g. polystyrene or similar material back with me to dispose of at the beach if there are rubbish bins or take it with me in the car to dispose of later. I now take re-usable bags each time I go to the supermarket and it's not so bad, in fact I think it's more trendy than those ugly plastic bags. I think they had it right in the good old days with recycled paper or brown paper bags.

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