Geez, James, of ecopunk.co.uk, I admire your lifehacks and blog a lot. Particularly, that you Mcgyvered a wifi antenna, talk about rare earth shortage, ditched fabric softener, and introduced me to a sweet and beautiful piece of engineering: a wind powered scarf knitting machine.
(found via ecopunk.org.uk)
Also, thanks, for writing on how to fix an umbrella. Mine had a few more fractures than yours, but after some time, and a little bloodshed, I did fix my favorite umbrella. On one stem, there is a red heart from a bent paper clip that reminds me not to rest the umbrella on that stem, also, it’s a symbol for love. The thrifty, hoard-y, waste fearing parts of me are loving this blog.
One thing that browsing through ecopunk.co.uk made me think of was my Dad. These sorts of projects are sort of all I imagine him doing after retiring–minus dumpster diving–plus watching slickdeals.net. He already grows his own veggies in his suburban home’s backyard and makes furniture out of furniture. (My dad got custom shelves for the garage when we got rid of my old bedroom furniture.)
Ecopunk James and my Dad also have what I think is a really admirable quality in common. It’s the way of looking at things in the world and not seeing limits to uses for them. All stuff is stuff. For him, there are few distinctions between bathroom stuff and kitchen stuff; girl stuff and boy stuff; and importantly: valuable stuff and trash. It makes sense that he thinks this way because a lot of these distinctions are products of the sort of capitalism that has circulated through the developed world and for the first half of his life, my Dad lived in and was a Chinese national.
In sum, he doesn’t see quite as many things as instantly and irrefutably trash as the average American of a certain class. While he is in many ways actively a consumer of consumer goods, he also doesn’t look to retail as the only place to consume stuff. He finds useable stuff everywhere.
For example, last time I was at my parents’ home, I took my old bike out for a ride. I found that the basket needed to be attached to the rack. My first thought went to the conventional solution: zip ties. Did we have some? My dad went looking through his “junk drawers” and came back, instead, with plastic coated wire. To my surprise and great delight, the wire came from the spiral binding of one of my old school notebooks that he had saved. We snipped off some pieces and use them like twist ties to secure the basket to the rack and it’s never been more secure.
I love finding other people that are hardwired for DIY and salvaged materials.
