andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2018-02-07 12:00 pm

Interesting Links for 07-02-2018

rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)

[personal profile] rmc28 2018-02-07 12:30 pm (UTC)(link)
We had great experiences with the bottle-return schemes in Finland, Sweden and Denmark last summer, which all worked very similarly: post your collection of plastic bottles / glass bottles / cans into the machine at the entry point to a supermarket, collect a voucher and spend it in the supermarket. The Finnish machines had an alternate button to enter a lottery, but I assumed we wouldn't be eligible for that. I really liked the idea of lottery-entry though, and if we can get this system here, we should totally get the National Lottery on board. Picking up litter to win a million!

We did accidentally put some containers into the household recycling system until our sharp-eyed child spotted the deposit markings - we'd been told about glass bottles but not plastic or cans. So we probably lost a euro or two that way.
cyprinella: Lake Michigan in winter with the caption "I think it's beginning to freeze here" (it's beginning to freeze here)

[personal profile] cyprinella 2018-02-07 04:22 pm (UTC)(link)
The state of Michigan has had can deposits for pretty much my entire life. I did a lot of pop can collecting in my youth to pay for things since there were still a lot of people who found it easier to dump them than take them back to the store. There's other states that do it as well, although their deposit is $0.05 compared to Michigan's $0.10.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

Edinburgh Pallette

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2018-02-07 02:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I think places like the Edinburgh Pallette are always going to be at risk of re-development.

They are essentially providing cheap and cheerful space in a shabby part of town to people who are in the early part of their craft carreer. As soon as the town prospers, the shabby part is gentrified or the art and craft community becomes successful and draws people in then the value of the land starts to outweigh the value of the rental income from the artists' colony to the owner.

It's a phenomenom that prices itself out of the market.

A smart long term strategy for a town council might be to make setting up artists' colonies really easy and to put community resource in to setting them up rather than having to take action to preserve a particular building as a artists' colony.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

Cheddar Man

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2018-02-07 02:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't think I'm hugely surprised that Cheddar Man had dark skin. I wonder what it tells us about the spread of humans out of Africa and through Europe and the impact of vitiman D deficiency on population growth.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

Katie Hopkins

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2018-02-07 02:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I think I saw a comment on the Interesting Links Facebook post that everyone leaving South Africa has their passport taken off them as part of the outward processing.
mair_in_grenderich: (Default)

Germany has a government again!

[personal profile] mair_in_grenderich 2018-02-07 06:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Nope. The deal has to be passed by the SPD membership first. Vote on March 6th. No certainty.