The Adlington Post

Here are some electrical bits'n'pieces I found in the trash the other day. The analogue phone will be handy for use when the power goes out. I will use some of the other bits for upcycled art projects. The rest will go into my scrap-metal box. I get some $30 for a banana box of electrical wiring from the scrap yard - half a tank of diesel for the van!

On one of my foraging expeditions I found this packaged food dumped in my locality. Judging by evidence from the other trash at the site, some students had moved out & saw fit to dump their "rubbish" in a car park. We have 12 x soy sauce, a Hershey's chocolate sauce, 10x miso soups, noodles, and three packets of noodle soups - lunches for me for several days...thanks guys.

The other night I found these two fresh and entirely edible loaves of bread in a skip. It is interesting to note that some 30% of the food produced in NZ goes to waste/landfill - this when many people in this country are going hungry. Let's call a spade a xxxing shovel here - the major food retailers are not interested in anything else but their "bottom line" and the interests of their shareholders. Shame on them.

Today I had great fun doing a show and tell with my recycled artworks for an attentive audience from PHAB Assn. Inc. (PHysically Disabled and Able-bodied) who came over from Takapuna. Many thanks to Sarah and the support crew, as well as to the young folks themselves. "PHAB is a ‘constructive support network’ not a service organization. We mentor and foster leadership among all our members. We have people, disabled and non-disabled, working together at every level of the organization. Building Dreams...Building Hopes...Building Lives...Building Futures...Building Friendships...Building Me..." www.phab.org.nz

As told to Paula Trubshaw & photographed by Kristina Rapley - thanks guys for a great job! The amended text reads:  Sneaking under the cover of the fence, I raced across to the Hobsonville Air force base rubbish dump. "Wow, check out this old ammunition box!" I exclaimed, hauling it out of the pile and showing it to my five-year old friends. Growing up close to the base in Auckland in the 1950's we were strictly forbidden to go near the dump - so of course we visited it as often as we could. It was full of the kind of treasures boys of my age dreamed about, and was the start of my lifelong interest in other people's junk. Moving to Wellington when I was 20, I got a job driving a rubbish truck. Within three months I'd outfitted my flat from floor to ceiling with the things other people tossed away: goat-skin rugs, a full set of cast-iron frying pans, and an old-fashioned typewriter were just some of the useful items that I rescued from the trash....

A collage I did for my cultural studies paper...