The Adlington Post

On Sunday 31 March the Sunday Star Times here in Auckland published an article on the tremendous waste of perfectly good food worldwide - and included an interview with myself: photo by Lawrence Smith/FairfaxNZ Diary of a Well-fed Freegan 0ne man's Waste is another’s dinner, and it’s not just about dumpster diving, writes Shabnam Dastgheib. AFTER SEVEN years of not paying for food, tools or art supplies, 63-year-old Martin Adlington has freeganism down to a fine art. He finds wine, biscuits, eggs, cheese, and bread and dips in a typical haul from a typical dive in a typical supermarket dumpster. He goes only when he feels like it and often finds enough to donate to large, hungry families in Auckland. This month, World Bank senior economist Jose Cuesta targeted retailers and consumers to find a solution to the world’s staggering food waste. A United Nations- backed campaign Think Eat Save estimates that in industrialized nations 300 million tonnes of food fit for consumption i...

As an environmental artist I see a lot of perfectly good materials being disposed of in landfill. Having lived in Fiji and visited several Pacific islands I am aware that much of our waste would be very welcome to our neighbours - particularly after disasters such as tsunamis and hurricanes. The remoteness and often poverty of these islands makes recovery from disaster extremely difficult and very expensive. I have previously organised assistance to Bali after the bombing ("Byron Loves Bali" in 2003), and to Niuatoputapu in Tonga after the tsunami (2010). Currently I am continuing to collect tools, knives, nails, and pots and pans for Niua as many of the people have by no means recovered from the damage of the tsunami. See details on my blog http://www.pacificneighbours.blogspot.co.nz/ tsunami damage someone's roof in the lagoon john with donations 2014   distribution of goods from yacht Atutaki in 2010 hammers for niua 2014

Last December I was invited to help present a workshop on the power of art to effect social change at "Artshift" a sub-activity of the international Youth Climate Change Summit (known as Power Shift : New Zealand- Pacific where well-over 600 young people signed up ) at Auckland University.  “The Power Shift NZ-Pacific 2012 Youth Climate Summit will create a powerful movement that will push New Zealand to raise its ambition in tackling climate change, and challenge our leaders to make meaningful change to climate policy.”  (From PowerShift.org.nz )   watch the video of the workshop HERE

What most of us internet users don't realize or fully appreciate is the extent to which our on-line activities are being monitored, recorded, stored, bundled and sold to advertisers (& other interested, and even more sinister, parties). We may be vaguely aware that "cookies" (activity trackers) are stored on our computers (which can & should be deleted in your browser's daily. I have recently enabled which, in real time, notifies you of other "trackers" of your activity & data -& will block such moles on request. For example, I searched for this evening.  Ghostery informed me that it had blocked nine (yes 9) trackers on the page I found. Among them was this entity: How's that for jargon?? They are saying that they are tracking visitors to sites and selling the ISP addresses as well as other relevant information ( ie our other web searches, physical address, contacts age, sex, sexual preferences. income, race, location, sites, ...

Let the Hunger Games Begin Celsias.co.nz reports: "The Great Drought of 2012 has yet to come to an end, but we already know that its consequences will be severe. With more than one-half of America’s counties designated as drought disaster areas, the 2012 harvest of corn, soybeans, and other food staples is guaranteed to fall far short of predictions.  This, in turn, will boost food prices domestically and abroad, causing increased misery for farmers and low-income Americans and far greater hardship for poor people in countries that rely on imported U.S. grains. This, however, is just the beginning of the likely consequences: if history is any guide, rising food prices of this sort will also lead to widespread social unrest and violent conflict. In 2008 a similar scenario led to “food riots” in more than two dozen countries, including Bangladesh, Cameroon, Egypt, Haiti, Indonesia, Senegal, and Yemen. In 2010 a surge in food prices resulted in widespread social unrest, t...

Last November I visited the Waitakere Refuse and recycling Transfer Station to see what happens with the stuff from our recycling bins. I went with my chum Alan, and Marissa Oakley Browne showed us around. Marissa is the Waste Minimisation Educator- Solid Waste Business Unit (Infrastructure & Environmental Services) at Auckland Council, in Mt Albert. Many thanks Marissa.

 Sunday Star Times 11 Dec 2011:  Those touting increased business links with China and the sale of NZ farmland to Chinese businessmen may find this article an interesting read. Dubious business schemes in China have evidently "seen many people flee". "A decade of soaring economic growth has also fuelled a fraud boom that Chinese academics say has seen more than US$130 billion spirited out of the country by corrupt officials....foreign governments had been asked to help repatriate some company owners, preferably with the money they took......A Bank of China report recently found that almost half of the country's millionaires were considering leaving." NZ seems to be a destination of choice. I had planned to post a link to the article, but at   www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx the Star Times wants readers to pay to read last year's news online - somehow I don't think so. Where I come from it's an old custom to use even yesterd...

Steve Robs Kids: despite all the hype, & the jokes ("there's an app for that") - apps are basically revenue-gathering, data-collating moles...ie in old hippie terms: bullshit. Remember - there is no app for imagination. Steve has robbed an entire generation of their imaginations...we see not gen-y nor gen-z...we experience gen-Dumbed-down .. ..we thought Disney was bad - this Apple is rotten . "Apple customers downloaded more than 15 billion applications in the past three years, the company said on Thursday, releasing figures that suggest the rate of downloads is sharply accelerating. The latest figures from Apple show that customers have downloaded around 5 billion apps so far this year, considering the company said in January that it had just passed the 10 billion download mark. It took roughly two and a half years to reach 10 billion downloads - but much of the period was spent without the popular iPad tablet, which has d...

 Here is my 2011 Xmas tree which exemplifies the true spirit of Christmas as practised. The key ingredients are money, possessions, greed, & prostitution. My inspiration is a Quaker quote from the 19th century (sorry to be so old-fashioned): "Let those of us who are opposed to war look into our own homes and the furnishings of those homes for the seeds of war" - feel free, gentle reader, to substitute the words "global financial collapse" or "vulture capitalism" for "war".

After over a decade in business the Browns Bay TAB in Anzac Square closed in mid - December 2011 and moved to Albany. Not only is the betting industry in trouble, so is the bloodstock industry. This year's sales at Karaka have been disappointing. Read HERE for more information from Radio National.

This is the first of a series of posts documenting some the changes in the community where I live. As the economic situation worsens, business here in Browns Bay are closing their doors. When the mall opened at nearby Albany in 2007 the fall-off in trade, visitors & traffic was immediately apparent in this beach-side suburb.Then the recession began in 2008, & the rot began with the closure of the Woolworths Supermarket. Although the 2011 Rugby World Cup was touted as being a potential financial bonanza for business of all types, in fact the only ones to benefit were the RWC itself & the grog merchants who sponsored the whole thing. Trade for most retailers declined as any disposable income people had was spent on expensive tickets for the games.Christmas sales were subdued - people are paying for all the toys houses & batches they bought when credit was readily available. So far there has been very little summer weather to bring people to the beach - so trade has s...