... on a bi-annual RANT!

It's been at least six months since my last rant, and I think I'm allowed two per year, so here goes.

I was shopping for some supplies the other day, and I got a shock. 

What's that, you say? It's something that was a bit tricky to photograph, but I think you can see it okay. This is tigertail. It's a plastic-coated stainless-steel wire used in jewellery assembly, and I use it for putting my wall hangings together. The upper piece there is a quality 7-strand Australian-made product that costs almost $38 for a roll containing 100 metres. The lower piece is a, what... 4? strand product made in That Place Where Cheap Things Are Made. It costs... get this... five bucks. For 100 metres. Retail! Standing there at the counter, I was astounded, and I think the chap helping me noticed, as he said (referring to the cheap one) "This will fall apart in a year." Lots of things ran through my head. Like this; how the hell can an Australian company compete with that, even though their product is far superior? And; so this is why things break. THIS is why things break. A manufacturer could swap from using a $38 roll to using a $5 roll. The consumer wouldn't know, the manufacturer saves $33, and the retail price can stay the same, right? GAH!

I re-stocked with the $38 roll. Walking out of there clutching it, I thought about all the substandard crap that we put up with. We put up with new cars that fail majorly when they're just out of warranty. We build 'affordable' off-the-plan houses that have frames of untreated timber, and wonder why they fill up with termites. We can buy a cheap component that costs one eighth the price of a quality one. 

Things aren't designed to last any more, and this is why. GAH!

... on a RANT!

"Say, Em... that's not a very nice photograph, what's the go?"

I'm about to rant. Look away if you don't like that kind of thing. I've just returned from my first four-wheel-driving adventure. C and I went out onto the beach at the Noosa North Shore, up past Cooloola and Rainbow Beach, round to Inskip Point, took the ferry across to Fraser Island, and went as far north as we could past Waddy Point before an impassable track turned us around, and then we came the same way back.

Now, it's a wild place. You certainly feel remote, and it's stunningly beautiful - a real wilderness, and I feel so lucky to have been able to finally go there. Only - and here's where the rant starts. There was freaking plastic everywhere. All up that beautiful sandy coastline there was just shitty plastic everywhere. Last night C and I camped on the beach for the first time. This morning we went for a walk and after only a few steps C said "Er... I'm just going to get a plastic bag." We used all the empty bags we had to collect any plastic we could see.

It felt like such a futile gesture. We know that as soon as the tide comes back in it'll bring more, and that buried in the dunes must be stacks of it. Those bloody glow-in-the-dark sticks were everywhere. What was awful was the amount of really tiny pieces there were. It gets brittle and then breaks apart - and there's absolutely no way anyone can ever go and pick all that shit up.

Organised clean-up events are a great idea - hell, I may have even participated in a 'Clean Up Australia Day' once! but seeing this stuff has really shocked me. I just wish that everyone that goes there could take a few bags of this crap home with them before it breaks into tiny pieces. Get it off the beach and into a bin, and do it every time you go.

Rant over. Positivity will return tomorrow. GAH!