Will ‘informal shoppers’ take recycled plastic?

INOTICED the outdoor tables and benches at one of the local picnic spots were made from recycled plastic material, which looked almost like wood. I don’t know what they call the stuff, but it looks tough and durable and is probably too heavy to be stolen and not flammable enough to be used as firewood. We have to consider these factors when selecting material for outdoor furniture.

We often talk about “informal housing”, but we also have an “informal shopping” problem to deal with in our country. Over the years I must have lost at least a dozen garden chairs to informal shoppers. The only ones that have survived the shopping spree have been a set of very rusty and quite spectacularly ugly garden chairs I bought in Bloemfontein more than 40 years ago. I paid R14 for the set of four, plus a table of equal hideousness.

Even the rust avoids them although I live next to the sea where things rust so fast you find your trousers falling down round your ankles and discover your belt buckle has vanished.

Anyway, this recycled plastic seemed to be a wonderful solution to at least three problems – theft, rust and plastic pollution.

One Tavern reader, Urs Sidler, came up with what I thought was a good suggestion.

If you look at the sides of almost any highway you’ll see those familiar galvanized steel “Armco” barriers designed to discourage us from driving off into space. They are held in place by sturdy wooden posts anchored in the ground.

Urs points out that those posts must account for the trees of several forests. He suggests they should be replaced by poles made of recycled plastic. That would not only create durable safety barriers, but also help to get rid of some of the vast tide of plastic waste that’s threatening to swallow our planet. Great idea. What about recycled plastic fence posts?

Recycled plastic roof trusses? If we turned plastic garbage into useful construction material it would have some commercial value and maybe unemployed people could earn a few rands bringing it to collection points for recycling.

Heaven knows, there’s enough of the stuff lying around ready for collection. I might even spend some money buying recycled heavy duty garden furniture to replace my dwindling patio set. And if the next informal shopper gets a hernia carrying it down my front steps, that would serve him right, I say.

Actually, I’ve become rather fond of my vintage Bloemfontein welded monstrosities over the years. Maybe I’ll hang on to them after all.

Last Laugh

Two lawyers were standing in a bank queue when a gang of masked robbers burst in waving guns and ordered everybody to lie down on the floor.

The robbers then went from person to person demanding money and cellphones.

As they lay there one of the lawyers felt in his pocket and pressed a roll of R100 notes into his companion’s hand.

“Here’s the thousand bucks I owe you,” he whispered.