“A thing’s greatest weakness
is also its greatest strength.”
~ Horrorshow (reworked)
So I freaked myself out with last week’s post. I had a dream where I visited the future.
Took a drive and found myself airborne over Seattle. We flew higher and higher and I was feeling greener and greener…
I cast a glance over my shoulder through the rear windscreen. There, in the process of construction, snaked a giant coastal fortress made entirely of rubbish.
“Holy crap,” I thought, “we’re living in Wall-E!!”
It’s almost the sequel to a dream I had 18 years ago.
My family were shipwrecked at sea. The lone survivor, I was washed up in the year 2020 where everything moved at warp speed – even the garbage collection, which was taken up by little men in green spacesuits, running around with industrial sized wheelie bins!
It’s frightening living in my brain. I promise after this I’ll stop talking rubbish 😉
But a couple of things were brought to my attention this week that I had to share.
First, the ugly beautiful.
Chris Jordan, the filmmaker of the shocking albatross story, is also an artist. He’s created an amazing series of images that put into perspective the “increasingly enormous, incomprehensible and overwhelming” reality of our collective existence. Check it out – it’ll blow your mind! Thanks Sean Bidd for the share 🙂
Second, the plastic fantastic.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right? Valerie Davies pointed me to a man in Japan who has invented a “plastic-to-oil-fantastic” solution to all the non-recyclable plastics we consume. Just check out this video (thanks, Valerie!):
“The home is the oil field of the future.”
~ Akinori Ito
With incredible simplicity, this man has put a solution within reach of all us little people. Together with Boyan Slat’s ocean hoover, and our own efforts to reduce plastic usage, change suddenly seems infinitely more achievable.
I think I’m on the verge of doing something drastic. Like selling the car to buy one of these oil making machines (as of last update, the cost was $12,700 US).
We already have the answers to all the world’s problems. As some of you pointed out, what’s missing is the awareness and, quite possibly, the will. But maybe with one, comes the other – and when that happens…
Butterfly Nebula – image source NASA
“…shine, shine, dead star shine.”
Think I’ve done my dash with horror stories for this month! I’m changing my fortnightly schedule to continue from this week, as I’ll be caught up with family commitments on the off weekends.
So, until next time, have a Happy Halloween!
Alarna Rose Gray 
Well Alarna, I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who makes really weird dreams! How awesome is this plastic to oil machine!
At least the dreams make for good stories! Awesome it is. I’m going to find out some more about it.
I was so fascinated by your video that even though I hardly have any space left on my blog I felt it was of utmost importance to post it! I obviously put your link on it, I hope you don’t mind 🙂
Of course not, please share it! That’s wonderful 🙂
Wishing you better dreams in the future 😉
I won’t complain – freaky dreams are better than no dreams! 🙂
That video was amazing. I had no idea! (Now I wonder why everybody doesn’t know about this.)
Exactly! I wonder the same thing. I’m going to do some more research…
In your flying over Seattle dream, did you happen to see me down there, sitting in an all day long traffic jam, cursing the circumstances that put me to living in this wretched, wretched place??
Haha…well, there was certainly a lot of traffic! I understand Seattle is just a bigger version of Melbourne, so something we can look forward to, perhaps? 😉
You know what they say about people who have weird dreams? No? Neither do I. 🙂 Happy Halloween, Alarna!
Aw, what?! I was looking forward to the end of that sentence! Hehe… You too, Kate 🙂
Is Seattle particularly garbage-ridden? I’ve only spent time in the suburban areas, for the most part, even though one of my closest friends lives there, so that is useful to know. 🙂 Or perhaps that was just the 2020 Seattle of your dream. Anyway, the plastic-to-oil video is definitely inspiring to me.
I doubt it is any more garbage ridden than any other place. Who knows what that was about? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Chris Jordan (the artist) lives there… 🙂
That video is awesome. Great lesson in looking after our planet. It is great that he took the machine to countries that don’t have the recycling bins habit that we are used to.
Yes, especially considering much of that rubbish comes from tourism and the need for bottled water! An amazing human being 🙂
hello, Alarna… ahaha, you have such a wild imagination, would think a bit before getting inside your tumultuous but poetic brain, hehe. btw, i love how you put things here, the solutions being in the problems. industrial wastes are such that even non-industrial countries like ours produce trash and toxins by the tons each day… not many are concerned, that’s the sad part… 🙂
It’s only going to get harder for us to ignore, I think. In the meantime, I’m going to try to put this tumultuous brain of mine to use and do something. Not sure exactly what yet… 😉
ahaha, you think so? how about, people’s ability to ignore would improve? hehe. am bad… hey, i could say the same for myself, buddy. have the rest of the week good, Alarna. wishing you well… 🙂
A-Ha Alarna – are you going home to learn to grow organic vegetables !!!
Great that you ran that video, and thanks for giving me a mention…
Hope all goes well, Valerie
You might be onto me, Valerie! I’m seriously thinking about it. Will see what the future brings… Many thanks xo
Great post, Alarna…dream and all. I grew up without plastic bottles and sacks. Somehow we all managed.Happy Halloween to you, too.
I know! It’s hard to imagine now, which is crazy. Thanks Lynne 🙂
I think it SO cool that you a had a sequel to a dream from 18 years ago. That’s a short story waiting to be written.
Freaky, huh? You might be onto something there, though. Thanks Nina!
Alarna, I just love your commitment to the environment. It’s heart-breaking to see what is happening to our planet. What I worry about now is the huge amount of radio-active waste coming from Japan from the earthquake disaster that happened last year. it’s on it’s way through the Pacific and headed to the west coast of Canada, the United States (where I live) and the Hawaiian Islands amongst others. If you look on the internet, it has already reached Vancouver, Canada and has killed the fish. U.N. reports that this nuclear disaster is 100 times worse than Chernobyl, Russia and will take about 140 years to clean up. Great. Oh yes, I am full of wonderful news. So you know, I am looking for a higher power to fix this mess because the officials do not know what to do about it. Oh, I also talked to a Commercial fisherman, and he said do not eat Bluefin Tuna anymore. Especially Pacific Bluefin. Can you say, Radioactive? Yikes! Have you heard anything about this in your neck of the woods? 🙂
Oh, Karen! Yes, I have heard about this. I saw a couple of links recently:
http://www.collapsingintoconsciousness.com/at-the-very-least-your-days-of-eating-pacific-ocean-fish-are-over/
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/
I’m not usually one to talk about or share bad news – we hear so much of it I think it has the opposite effect of motivating change. But this is beyond comprehension, and the solution? God knows. In these times, I’m very glad I’ve never liked to eat fish. Growing up vegetarian has its pluses!
Hi Alarna,
Great post.
So how do we move forward? You have rightly spoken of awareness. Yes, this is needed and this then needs to be used to fuel intention.
There are so many technologies available in the world to “solve all problems”. But it all boils down to commercial viability for that is the single-most important mantra adopted by industry. It may just be that the plastic to oil machine may suffer because of this.So we come back again to the question, ‘What is the way forward?’ I would say that the criteria used to evaluate corporate performance needs to have a sea change.
Shakti
You’re quite right, Shakti. I have been wondering the same thing – I think the plastic-to-oil machine is great in countries where this sort of thing is not strongly monitored or controlled by corporate interests, and people have a use for the unprocessed oil it produces. I’m slowly investigating its viability in places like Australia, because the issue would be what to do with the oil once converted. If there was somewhere to take it for processing, then great. I was interested to see there is a commercial operation of this kind in Maryland http://www.gizmag.com/envion-plastic-waste-to-oil-generator/12902/ . I’d love to think local government could get behind this kind of thing…