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Finally beginning to get enough stuff unpacked that it's starting to feel like home instead of a weird vacation.
On Saturday we met up with some of the guys off BAF and they helped us move the washer up the hill. As Stacey had predicted, it actually only took four people. We loaded it onto the cart, strapped it down, and hauled it up without incident. There are still a good number of plastic bins under the tarp down at the bottom. Trying to unpack as we move stuff up so that it never gets too cluttered. As we're unpacking, I'm finding a lot more stuff that I'm willing to freecycle. It's amazing how weighted down one's life gets with junk.
I wish there were more opportunities in life to have a place like in front of my apartment where I can just put up a sign that says 'free stuff' and let people take things they want or need. Freecycle is a nice step but it still requires an outlay of time and effort for the transaction and it requires transportation and such. If you're giving up large expensive items like furniture and computers, that's alright but if it's a few toys or something smaller, then the value of freecycle drops way off.
On the other hand, you can't simply have a place where people can just drop off things other people may want as there are plenty of people who will abuse the spirit of it. Even an event like a 'free exchange day' where you require the owner of the items to stay with it would invite a few to abuse the situation. I suppose most people can have a garage sale and simply sell things cheap enough to get rid of most everything that they want and it was merely being an apartment dweller and now living in a very remote location that cause it to be a problem for me.
Related to all this, I saw an interesting article about chipped waste bins in the UK.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255565/Spy-chips-hidden-2-5-million-dustbins-council-snoopers-plan-pay-throw-tax.html
I think it's kind of an interesting idea but I'm not sure about the implementation. I like the idea of people who contribute the most waste having to pay more but I'm skeptical that weight is the right way to go about it. For a start, if implemented, the city should also supply adequate recycling services for all recyclables. The person who reads the daily paper should not be charged more than the person tossing disposable diapers simply because the city doesn't provide paper recycling. Nor should the person who eats lots of fresh vegetables and cuts off skins and bad spots and such be charged more than the one who tosses the empty trays of TV dinners simply because there is no composting bin. Or fat people vs thin because there's no cloth recycling and their clothing is larger and therefor heavier. If properly separated, there's actually very little that can't be recycled. Though more stringent laws about excess packaging would also be nice.
Anyhow. I've gone on quite a ramble.
On Saturday we met up with some of the guys off BAF and they helped us move the washer up the hill. As Stacey had predicted, it actually only took four people. We loaded it onto the cart, strapped it down, and hauled it up without incident. There are still a good number of plastic bins under the tarp down at the bottom. Trying to unpack as we move stuff up so that it never gets too cluttered. As we're unpacking, I'm finding a lot more stuff that I'm willing to freecycle. It's amazing how weighted down one's life gets with junk.
I wish there were more opportunities in life to have a place like in front of my apartment where I can just put up a sign that says 'free stuff' and let people take things they want or need. Freecycle is a nice step but it still requires an outlay of time and effort for the transaction and it requires transportation and such. If you're giving up large expensive items like furniture and computers, that's alright but if it's a few toys or something smaller, then the value of freecycle drops way off.
On the other hand, you can't simply have a place where people can just drop off things other people may want as there are plenty of people who will abuse the spirit of it. Even an event like a 'free exchange day' where you require the owner of the items to stay with it would invite a few to abuse the situation. I suppose most people can have a garage sale and simply sell things cheap enough to get rid of most everything that they want and it was merely being an apartment dweller and now living in a very remote location that cause it to be a problem for me.
Related to all this, I saw an interesting article about chipped waste bins in the UK.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255565/Spy-chips-hidden-2-5-million-dustbins-council-snoopers-plan-pay-throw-tax.html
I think it's kind of an interesting idea but I'm not sure about the implementation. I like the idea of people who contribute the most waste having to pay more but I'm skeptical that weight is the right way to go about it. For a start, if implemented, the city should also supply adequate recycling services for all recyclables. The person who reads the daily paper should not be charged more than the person tossing disposable diapers simply because the city doesn't provide paper recycling. Nor should the person who eats lots of fresh vegetables and cuts off skins and bad spots and such be charged more than the one who tosses the empty trays of TV dinners simply because there is no composting bin. Or fat people vs thin because there's no cloth recycling and their clothing is larger and therefor heavier. If properly separated, there's actually very little that can't be recycled. Though more stringent laws about excess packaging would also be nice.
Anyhow. I've gone on quite a ramble.
