The House(s) of Fran_mart

I posted recently about the amount of litter on the roadsides in this area (ie Widgiewa, Captains Flat  and Briars-Sharrow Roads.  The catalyst for that was extending some of our dog walks to the intersection of Widgiewa with Captains Flat Rd (CFR). It appears to me that the situation has got worse at that area, in terms of it looking like an outpost of the Bungendore tip on a windy day, since the original post.  So today I took myself off there to do a bit of more rigorous assessment. The area I chose to clean up was 55m long (from the 70 speed limit sign in Widgiewa Rd to the bitumen of CFR) and was about 2m wide on each side of the road.  So that makes it 220 sqm in area. The area is illustrated in this image. The speed limit sign is on the brow of the hill, marked by A.  (I will get to 'B' later.) I picked up 143 bits of litter, ranging in size from a take-away ketchup container to a large (1m square) lump of coreflute.  I didn't pick up the...

The NSW Government has launched a new anti-littering campaign .  Here are a couple of the posters the use This is based around a pun, or possibly a double-entendre .  The premiere entendre relates to people throwing litter around.  The deuxieme entendre is covered well in this page .  The basic thrust that people who chuck litter are wankers is, I feel, pretty much beyond challenge. We observed a particular example of onanism one Sunday morning at the junction of Widgiewa and Captains Flat Rds when a ute laden with trail bikes stopped, two youth got out chucked a can on the ground and after a couple of minutes drove off.  Presumably to wreck some of the State Forest nearby. Here is a snap of part of this area as it looked on 24 August.  This image comes from a bit further towards the forest, at the start of Briars-Sharrow Rd. My guess is that 2 sacks of litter could easily be gained in about 100m of verge at each of these sites.  On Br...

I will start off with a couple of unusual sightings that haven't made it elsewhere on the blog. On 2 March when going down the drive on our dog walk a small (perhaps half normal size) wombat toddled across a hill, took a look at us and fled back towards the Creek.  Surprisingly, without the small dog spotting it. The next day as we were returning from the walk we had the sun behind us and some dark, threatening clouds in front.  An excellent rainbow developed and we both realised it was ages since we had seen one! Next we have a snap of a Gippsland Water Dragon (because they are interesting to look at)! Now back to the usual updates and retractions! This Blog Some material about humidity and validation of the wind direction have been added to the February weather report . Some comments on the onset of Autumnal weather added to the Iceman pos t. A second fox sighting added In February I posted about the issue of garbage collection .  Th...

... a day late. Due to getting confused by some stuff about our garbage survey I forgot that yesterday was Clean-up Australia Day so had to do my patch today.  This is about 600m on Captains Flat rd and I do both sides. The start was not that propitious since I was greeted with this sight. This is the area where the school buses drop the kids off after school.   However I don't think the parents are sufficiently bored to knock off a 4 litre Coolabah and 6 bottles of red.  Unless the schools are very advanced I doubt if they allow the kids to duck down to Liquorland to get a little something for the bus trip home.  So I assume it is a bunch of grot bags who dumped the results of their day's pig-hunting. My impression was that apart from this there was generally less litter than has been the case in the past.  Perhaps that means the message about keeping the place tidy is sinking in a bit? I picked up 2 sacks of recyclable stuff and 1.5 sacks of garbage...

I have posted a couple of times ( here and here ) about a current debate on a household garbage collection service in the Carwoola - Primrose Valley area.  Some of the conversation off-blog has focused, quite correctly on the need to recycle stuff rather than send it as garbage to the landfill. In my original letter to selected Councillors I referred to the very limited knowledge base about disposal of unwanted goods in this area.  I have thought a little more about this topic and decided that a third post might spell things out a bit. As a first point it is important to note that my subject is about 'unwanted goods' rather than garbage.  One persons garbage is something that someone else may be able to use.  By way of example: Our compost heap is kept in order by some used pallets I picked up at a tip about 6 years ago; When I need a strong rope for one of many purposes I use some that I also found at a tip, When picking stuff from our vegie garden pro...

Following exchanges with Councillors the cost of the scheme proposed by the Council has been clarified.  I have  circulated an email to the Landcare Group and this is a back-up in case others are following my blog. In my original letter I was going on memory in my comments about the cost of the proposed service.  I have now gathered the facts,  stimulated by a comment from Councillor Marshall, and find that if the proposal was accepted what we would be looking at is as follows: Recycling $86 General Waste Management $305  ( not mentioned in the letter from Council )  and  Garbage collection $170 (256-86) or $212 (298-86) depending upon the option chosen. So in total, if the Waste collection proposal was accepted the bill would for Waste Management Services would be a minimum of 86+305+170= $561!  The element open for debate is the additional $170 for a service that our household at least doesn't need.   The General Waste Manage...

Our Council ran a Survey a year or so back about setting up a kerbside recycling service, as the previous system of picking up from a cluster of bins was not working, due to excess demand for the facility.  In responding to that Survey some folk apparently suggested that a roadside service should also be established for general garbage.  My views on this matter are expressed in a letter to the Mayor (Pete Harrison) and another Councillor who lives nearby. Dear Councillors   I recently received a letter from the Council regarding a proposed roadside garbage collection in the Carwoola area.  I have completed the form enclosed with the letter and returned it as requested.  In view of the many issues raised by this proposal (and I cannot find a positive) I consider it useful to provide you with more detailed comments than were possible on the form.   A first point is that for my (2 person) household the service is unnecessary.  We accumulate a 240l bi...