Tag: waste

#365daysofbiking Stark, bollock naked

October 28th – Telford’s new footbridge linking town and railway station – built to replace an older one rendered unsuitable for wheelchair users – is still plagued with standing water, despite attempts to alleviate it by drilling holes in the bridge deck.

In a total admission of design failure, large diameter holes have now been cut into the floor with grilles like plughole in them. I guess this has to work, if they’re in the right place.

Sadly there is no guttering or drain on the whole structure, and to put it bluntly the drained water will piss onto the commuters standing on the platform below.

Quite how a council and railway management company can allow a huge structure – getting on for 10 million pounds worth – to be built and commissioned with no rainwater control whatsoever is utterly beyond me.

Recently there were posters around the station begging passengers to vote for this ill thought out, awful bodge in some or other architecture competition.

A lot of Telford seems quite fond of this dysfunctional mess.

Telford, your emperor is stark bollock naked.

This journal is moving home. Find out more by clicking here.

from Tumblr https://ift.tt/2q7PM7u
via IFTTT

#365daysofbiking Forbidden fruit

September 9th – In Darlaston, trapped in land I can see but never reach between two factory yards, the most splendid crop of rosy red apples.

They will windfall, and be eaten mostly by the local foxes and birds, every year the same.

I always wonder if they taste nice. I guess I’ll never know.

This journal is moving home. Find out more by clicking here.

from Tumblr https://ift.tt/30mcdlN
via IFTTT

#365daysofbiking Filthy scum

August 17th – This needs no explanation: A bag of dog waste, collected by a dog ‘lover’ to look responsible, tossed into the hedge on a canal bank near Clayhanger when nobody is watching. It will now remain here, out of reach, a monument to your lazy disrespect until the wind dislodges it.

This is a filthy, disrespectful and nasty habit.

Those doing this are scum. No more, no less.

Don’t just pick up after emptying your dog, dispose of it’s waste properly. You bought the animal, you are responsible for the shit it extrudes.

This journal is moving home. Find out more by clicking here.

from Tumblr https://ift.tt/2ZbrTb9
via IFTTT

#365daysofbiking What lies beneath

July 7th – It was indeed a better day. The sun was out, the wind had subsided as had the discomfort in my stomach.

I headed out on the canal to Wolverhampton, taking a slow but enjoyable potter down the mainline canal to Birmingham. From there to Aston, where I left the canal and got on a train back to Shenstone.

I noted the Dudley Tourist Board had been working hard to improve it’s customer service at Coseley Tunnel, where I doubt I’ll ever negotiate the southern portal steps with a bike again, although it was certainly an adventure.

Calling at the heavily secured, ghostly Rattlechain Pool, the lagoon concealing many thousands of tonnes of the worst toxic waste was a strange experience: It looks so serene and peaceful, yet the pool – itself just a cap to the material beneath, separated by a thick impermeable skin – is securely fenced and covered by many cameras.

It’s a ghostly and controversial place.

Under the M5 viaduct and Telford’s magnificent Engine Arm aqueduct, the canal is a peaceful, gentle and serene refuge from the mad urbanity above, and the street art is, as ever, fascinating.

Passing on the canal down the Snow Hill flight, I see the view is a matter of opinion. But why? What’s that all about?

A great restorative ride.

This journal is moving home. Find out more by clicking here.

from Tumblr https://ift.tt/2lt2hbw
via IFTTT

February 18th – In what turned out to be an abortive, doomed ride due to technical and other issues, I was further dismayed to come upon this asbestos water tank, dumped in a lay-by on the bend of Bullmoor Lane near Chesterfield. 

As structural asbestos this is a health hazard and will require specialist removal and handling, unlike the monkeys who dumped it here.

If you’ve recently had a water tank like this removed, the people who did it may be flytippers with no respect for others. I hope their plumbing is of a higher standard than their waste practices.

I did report this online immediately.

September 7th – Spotted as I cruised towards Brownhills just off the Lindon Road, a fine crop of bright red, hard crab apples, so ripe they were falling untouched from the tree.

Like previous apples of this type, scraping them with a fingernail revealed the  smelled bitter and acidic, explaining the lack of takers.

I suppose it’s a thing to grow trees and shrubs for the beauty of the fruit and flowers, with no regard to utility of the crop. Which is a bit sad; whenever I see fruit rot like this I feel it’s a pity it can’t be readily used or consumed.

January 29th – A horrible, grey, wet and misty day that had very, very little to commend it. I set out in rain, and came back in rain and there was no cessation between the two. 

My heavy heart was not helped at Chasewater, where some scumbag has dumped an old IBC full of what looks like kitchen fitter’s waste: now a repeat flytipping spot, the space next to the Nine-Foot wouldn’t be suffering if the council had put in a barrier years ago. There’s no reason for anyone except rangers to be here in a vehicle, after all.

The mess these filthy toe rags have left will cost us all to clean up. If you know who it was, please dob them in to the police.

November 23rd -Noticed in light drizzle just by the far side of the canal, on the edgelands of a scrapyard near Bentley Bridge in Walsall: apples, so far out of human reach, they’re rotting off the tree – food only for birds, squirrels and foxes.

Dripping with winter rain, I guess they’ll stay until the next really heavy wind.

Sad to see. I wonder if they’re tasty at all?

October 13th – Have you had a new bathroom fitted lately? Does your house now look splendid and fresh? Great.

Sadly, if you paid a chancer to remover the rubbish, it’s now in Green Lane, on the Walsall Wood/Shelfield border in a field gateway, because you were too cheap to pay fro proper waste disposal, or they were.

Since the partial closure of Green Lane for sewage repair works last week, the lane has been blighted with such flytipping.

If you paid someone to dump this stuff, you could be prosecuted on the same basis as the flytipper., because under the law giving waste to an unlicensed carrier incurs the same penalty as fly tipping.

The other possibility is you dumped it yourself. In which case you’re beneath contempt.

There’s a lot of packaging in there. Hope none of it has your address on it.

June 8th – I hopped off the canal at Bentley Mill Way to check out the work on the aqueduct from ground level; as the road is still closed, I was curious; it seems there’s work on the north side that can’t be seen from the canal. 

I’m sure whole canals were dug by hand faster than this project has limped to completion.

One of the first things I noted was the new towpath surface ends at the top of the steps here, so I guess the intention is you get here using the shared-use path, then hop on the canal for Walsall. 

Only a non-cyclist could have thought this was a good idea. The steps, even for a fairly strong bloke like me, were a nightmare with a bike. There’s no handrail. No wheeling channel. The steps are at an awkward pitch, and overgrown. This is lousy, and I strongly advise cyclists not to use it.

Off the bridge, the roadway has been lowered considerably to accommodate taller vehicles, but I’m not sure that’ll help much as the width is very restricted.

As I said before, I hope the pumps hoovering the water from those drains are reliable.

I don’t want to dislike this – but this has cost millions, for no real improvement and it stinks of being someone’s pet project.

Dire.