Now before you start throwing virtual things at me its an important point that I raise today.
The planet that we live on seems to be a constant point of conversation along with the words, recycle, carbon and energy. There are those that believe that the world is not being damaged and those that do. There are people who will tell you about your carbon footprint and there are those that really think it’s just a load of spin to get you paying more taxes.
I have to say I have a foot in both camps - I believe that the governments are milking it and adding green taxes where they can but I also think that there is a validity in all of this.
In my previous blog I wrote about home electronics and the mounting pile - and the damage this does to our environment. You cannot just bury this stuff in the ground now, with all the chemicals and electronic waste seeping into the earth. This is a good thing. It's also prompted manufacturers to get smarter in their production to reduce these harmful chemicals.
So anyway - Earth hour - what is it?
At 8.30pm local time (wherever you are in the world) on the 27th March people taking part will switch off all of their lights and non essential electrical items and spend the hour joining the world in darkness. It's a simple idea which has seen massive support since its first year in 2007. We have the Aussies to thank for this as they started it and the world jumped in in 2008. Last year saw a record 4000 cities in 88 countries taking part making it the biggest event of its kind.
The usual suspects are all getting involved, for instance the lights in Piccadilly will be turned off, only the 5th time since the 2nd world war.
Some people are doing some strange and wonderful things. 1 group is having a candlelit dinner in the woods and others are planning some crazy things (you can find out more at http://www.earthhour.org/ )
Although, just sitting with your lights out is taking part already.
So if you didn't know or didn't care just have a little think. It's something we could all do with ease and really the only thing we are supporting here is the planet.
Pledge your support and get involved, I'll be spending this with my family playing some games and lighting Chinese lanterns - great for the kids and great for the planet!
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Thursday, 18 February 2010
The mounting pile of Home electronics - some questions for you!
Recently there has been a surge in the number of companies offering you cashback for your old mobiles.
However this still leaves a large amount of old electronic items in the household which end up being wasted at council depots etc. This is a huge amount of waste which we produce, allow me to explain
in 2007 we purchased 89,221.638 tonnes of small electrical items, in the same year we sent 6,977.42 tonnes to a council or recycling depot. You would expect the 2nd figure to be much higher based on the amount of new equipment that was purchased. (source www.letsrecycle.com)
Is this because we tend to keep the smaller electrical items.
I had a look at the smaller items and this is a list that I managed to come up with
Computers (PC, laptops etc) , Mini stack Stereos, Camcorders, , Keyboards, Printers, CD players, MP3 players, Game consoles, Telephones - static, mobile, PDA, VCR's, DVD players, radio's, cables, wiring, calculators, ST boxes.
Then I went through my house, looking in long lost cupboards and of course the short trip up the ladder into the loft. The items that I found amazed me especially as many have been covered in dust for a long time.
3x old desktop PC's
3x calculators
1x hairdryer
2x old MP3 players
1x Old non digital camcorder
1x DVD Recorder (broken kept in case it started working again)
6 x Mobiles of little value on any of the websites
1x PS2 (not used since the purchase of the PS3)
2 x old routers
3 reels of old telephony cable
1x reel of Cable (not used and was taken out since I went wireless)
2 x Gameboy advances (replaced with DS')
2x old stereo's
What amazes me further is that we are are pretty pro active house when it comes to recycling - I often visit the tip with many an item, In fact i was there last week with a car full, but with none of the above stuff!
Now here are the questions
1) Do we tend to keep the electrical items because of the original cost, or do we think there is still a value
2) do you think you have as many items as me, or more or less
However this still leaves a large amount of old electronic items in the household which end up being wasted at council depots etc. This is a huge amount of waste which we produce, allow me to explain
in 2007 we purchased 89,221.638 tonnes of small electrical items, in the same year we sent 6,977.42 tonnes to a council or recycling depot. You would expect the 2nd figure to be much higher based on the amount of new equipment that was purchased. (source www.letsrecycle.com)
Is this because we tend to keep the smaller electrical items.
I had a look at the smaller items and this is a list that I managed to come up with
Computers (PC, laptops etc) , Mini stack Stereos, Camcorders, , Keyboards, Printers, CD players, MP3 players, Game consoles, Telephones - static, mobile, PDA, VCR's, DVD players, radio's, cables, wiring, calculators, ST boxes.
Then I went through my house, looking in long lost cupboards and of course the short trip up the ladder into the loft. The items that I found amazed me especially as many have been covered in dust for a long time.
3x old desktop PC's
3x calculators
1x hairdryer
2x old MP3 players
1x Old non digital camcorder
1x DVD Recorder (broken kept in case it started working again)
6 x Mobiles of little value on any of the websites
1x PS2 (not used since the purchase of the PS3)
2 x old routers
3 reels of old telephony cable
1x reel of Cable (not used and was taken out since I went wireless)
2 x Gameboy advances (replaced with DS')
2x old stereo's
What amazes me further is that we are are pretty pro active house when it comes to recycling - I often visit the tip with many an item, In fact i was there last week with a car full, but with none of the above stuff!
Now here are the questions
1) Do we tend to keep the electrical items because of the original cost, or do we think there is still a value
2) do you think you have as many items as me, or more or less
Monday, 18 January 2010
It's not just the Carbon Darling :-)
It would be very easy for me to start with the usual opening of unless we start recycling everything we use the world is going to spontaneously combust or the fact that the polar bear is running out of ice to tread on but then we have heard this time and time again.
Did we get green all of a sudden? Or did the governments realise that they were missing a trick by creating a wealth of stealth taxes as a result of us all being "dirty"?
For most of us the last time gasses (CFC's or Carbon) was a big issue was in the early 90's when demon fridges and spray cans were pronounced as the devil and we all had to find different ways of "spraying".
None of us have as yet spent the day in a farmer’s field sticking corks into cows arses either although I am sure it will not be long before we are seriously considering this I am sure.
The point is there is so much hype surrounding the great carbon debate that we have all kind of switched off from the smaller and bigger pictures. Who wouldn't though, let’s be honest if green = more tax then they know where they can shove it!
Still it doesn't have to be like this. There is a truth in the matter and if you take all the science out the way it is pretty fair to say that we are pretty bad when it comes to giving back what we have taken from the earth. (Think back to the last time you visited your local Tip, what could have been recycled rather than just dumped).
I'll give you an example sourced from the times online - 15 million handsets last year in the UK were sent to the great phone maker in the sky. The amount that was actually recycled was around 2% or 300,000 phones.
Yes there has been an increase in the amount of websites you can send your phone to for cash but even these sites do not tell you the real facts.
Of the phones which are not sent to charities etc or those that are refurbished and re issued there is a huge amount that either do not have a value or have just laid in a drawer for a few years and wouldn’t be of use to anybody (you think)
Now here is a thing. If you had 50,000 mobiles you would be sitting on around 25K for the gold content alone. This doesn’t sound like a lot but it soon adds up. you wouldn’t just throw a gold ring in the bin now would you?
This has nothing to do with Carbon footprints or Greenhouses - it’s just waste - waste which when you think about it is pretty shocking.
Start adding your other electrical into this (DVD machines, Sat navs, TV's etc) and all of a sudden you may realise that it’s not the carbon that’s the problem but the fact that if anything electrical lasts more than 5 years these days it’s a miracle.
If you could actually see the pile of electricals you have amassed over the past few years I can imagine that you would be pretty shocked.
I’ll be letting you know over the next few weeks what you can do which will effectively rid us all of this problem for ever. The best thing about it is you don't even need to leave your house to make a change, or invest in the next greatest thing - but for now that would be telling !
Did we get green all of a sudden? Or did the governments realise that they were missing a trick by creating a wealth of stealth taxes as a result of us all being "dirty"?
For most of us the last time gasses (CFC's or Carbon) was a big issue was in the early 90's when demon fridges and spray cans were pronounced as the devil and we all had to find different ways of "spraying".
None of us have as yet spent the day in a farmer’s field sticking corks into cows arses either although I am sure it will not be long before we are seriously considering this I am sure.
The point is there is so much hype surrounding the great carbon debate that we have all kind of switched off from the smaller and bigger pictures. Who wouldn't though, let’s be honest if green = more tax then they know where they can shove it!
Still it doesn't have to be like this. There is a truth in the matter and if you take all the science out the way it is pretty fair to say that we are pretty bad when it comes to giving back what we have taken from the earth. (Think back to the last time you visited your local Tip, what could have been recycled rather than just dumped).
I'll give you an example sourced from the times online - 15 million handsets last year in the UK were sent to the great phone maker in the sky. The amount that was actually recycled was around 2% or 300,000 phones.
Yes there has been an increase in the amount of websites you can send your phone to for cash but even these sites do not tell you the real facts.
Of the phones which are not sent to charities etc or those that are refurbished and re issued there is a huge amount that either do not have a value or have just laid in a drawer for a few years and wouldn’t be of use to anybody (you think)
Now here is a thing. If you had 50,000 mobiles you would be sitting on around 25K for the gold content alone. This doesn’t sound like a lot but it soon adds up. you wouldn’t just throw a gold ring in the bin now would you?
This has nothing to do with Carbon footprints or Greenhouses - it’s just waste - waste which when you think about it is pretty shocking.
Start adding your other electrical into this (DVD machines, Sat navs, TV's etc) and all of a sudden you may realise that it’s not the carbon that’s the problem but the fact that if anything electrical lasts more than 5 years these days it’s a miracle.
If you could actually see the pile of electricals you have amassed over the past few years I can imagine that you would be pretty shocked.
I’ll be letting you know over the next few weeks what you can do which will effectively rid us all of this problem for ever. The best thing about it is you don't even need to leave your house to make a change, or invest in the next greatest thing - but for now that would be telling !
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Social Media Networking vs Real World Networking
I have to say having spent the last few days going back to more traditional methods of growing networks I've realised I'm more than happy to have been born in the digital age. How the hell did anybody get anything done back then with just a landline a pencil and a load of contact cards. Point in case is that if I had written this back then there would have already been 5 noticeable tipex marks on the page. (that’s a whole other subject, I'm sure the makers of tipex are struggling these days)
Which then got me thinking. How did the world work, how were multinational companies created, how did partnerships evolve, how were customers served. These days it’s all about doing something in the quickest time possible at the least cost.
I've been (and if you have been reading my blog) working now in growing our network in Spain. Traditionally companies in our IT world tend to rely on a partner in each country to deliver a service. We however have taken a different approach and made the decision to expand into Europe as we started delivering business. for instance Ireland and Poland have now been running for a while now, so Spain was always next.
Essentially we are building a network of skilled contractors (in some cases from the expat community, something I have an immense amount of time for) and this has meant digging around to try and find suitable companies.
Now, when you search for a Spade in Google it’s what you generally get with a few variations. However I don't think the island of Majorca has SEO optimisation as one of its key focus areas and as a result an innocent search can leave you spending hours trying to find somebody to call. To me although I am looking on the WWW its very much a "offline" activity - lots of research and plenty of patience. I enjoy doing it this way immensely even though it can be incredibly frustrating.
Compare this to the instant gratification of firing off a few tweets, hitting a few focused forums and posting for help on sites like ecademy, it’s the difference between night and day. Straight away you end up being pointed in the right direction or people jump in and offer assistance - Bloody brilliant.
I'll continue doing both for now, it will be interesting to see if the end product of all this was born from me thumbing through pages of information or sending a quick tweet!
So, tell me, have you had any experiences like this, or a tale of how it used to be?
Which then got me thinking. How did the world work, how were multinational companies created, how did partnerships evolve, how were customers served. These days it’s all about doing something in the quickest time possible at the least cost.
I've been (and if you have been reading my blog) working now in growing our network in Spain. Traditionally companies in our IT world tend to rely on a partner in each country to deliver a service. We however have taken a different approach and made the decision to expand into Europe as we started delivering business. for instance Ireland and Poland have now been running for a while now, so Spain was always next.
Essentially we are building a network of skilled contractors (in some cases from the expat community, something I have an immense amount of time for) and this has meant digging around to try and find suitable companies.
Now, when you search for a Spade in Google it’s what you generally get with a few variations. However I don't think the island of Majorca has SEO optimisation as one of its key focus areas and as a result an innocent search can leave you spending hours trying to find somebody to call. To me although I am looking on the WWW its very much a "offline" activity - lots of research and plenty of patience. I enjoy doing it this way immensely even though it can be incredibly frustrating.
Compare this to the instant gratification of firing off a few tweets, hitting a few focused forums and posting for help on sites like ecademy, it’s the difference between night and day. Straight away you end up being pointed in the right direction or people jump in and offer assistance - Bloody brilliant.
I'll continue doing both for now, it will be interesting to see if the end product of all this was born from me thumbing through pages of information or sending a quick tweet!
So, tell me, have you had any experiences like this, or a tale of how it used to be?
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