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You don’t often think of a garbage can as an art medium, but some artists do. And how nice is it to disguise an ugly-but-necessary object as something delightful? My favorite of the collection at WebUrbanist is this graffiti-embellish can by Job Willemsen and Tom v.d. Hurk in the Netherlands. Link
(Image source: Wooster Collective)
by Stephen L. Richey
Kolibri Aviation Safety Research, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.
The author was witness to a case of probable spatial disorientation with flight into terrain in a gull that was feeding upon a discarded bag of microwave popcorn. Spatial disorientation with flight into terrain is a well-documented phenomenon amongst human pilots. Here I discuss it as a possible explanation for some cases of injury and death in birds. I also discuss the risks inherent in attempting to aid what you might believe to be an injured gull—a gull that, in turn, might think you are attempting to take away its hard-earned food.
Flying Garbage Disposal
The ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis) is among the most adaptable foragers in the animal kingdom. To phrase it more bluntly, they are basically flying garbage disposals that can and will eat nearly any item they can get their beaks around.
Gulls are among the birds most readily adapted to coexistence with human developments. They have learned to utilize human refuse as a food source.
The Scene Seen in Saginaw
The campus of Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, which the author previously attended, is home to a healthy population of ring-billed gulls (fig. 1). The relatively brazen nature of their feeding behaviors leads to the opportunity for close observation of mishaps related to this activity. The events described took place during an early afternoon in August 2007 as the author, an avid bird watcher and student pilot, was returning home from class to the university’s apartments.
A bag of burned generic microwave popcorn (fig. 2) was thrown out the door of a university apartment building. Immediately several gulls, all presumably L. delawarensis, descended upon the scene.
A squabble over the bag and its contents ensued. One of the birds grasped the bag in its bill, and took off. The weather at the time was observed to be generally clear; visibility was well beyond that which would allow for visual flight rules operations by a human pilot.
Figure 1: A ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis).
(Image credit: Wikipedia user Mdf)
Aerodynamics Details: The Popcorn-Bag and the Gull
The point by which the bag was held was the lower edge (in arbitrary reference to the direction of the ground as the bag landed after being discarded) of the open end. Approximately three seconds after takeoff, the airflow associated with flight blew the bag over the gull’s head. Almost immediately, the bird was observed to go into a steep (~80 degrees angle of attack) climb until approximately 250–300 feet off the ground. At this altitude, the gull, still flapping its wings, experienced an aerodynamic stall which resulted in its nose swinging to the left until it dropped below the horizon, placing the bird into an extreme nose-down attitude. When performed by a pilot in an aircraft, this maneuver is referred to as a “hammerhead stall.”
more …
There are no landfills for garbage in Antarctica, at least none near McMurdo Station, the American research outpost. Therefore, recycling is a serious endeavor, with a very extensive list of items to be recycled. Still, the residents have a sense of humor and added some “extra” bins for even more stuff to be recycled! See more at Boing Boing. Link
(Image credit: Henry Kaiser)
This monster art project situated in the city square of Ljubljana, Slovenia (with tentacles trailing down the streets) was created from 40,000 plastic bags and 7,500 discarded plastic cups collected from the local schools. It’s a statement about consumerism and waste. Pretty scary! Link -via RightBrainTerrain
This vehicle is called Leach’s Garbage Getter, a state-of-the-art sanitation truck built between 1932 and 1949. You can see many garbage truck designs from different eras and different parts of the world in a roundup at Dark Roasted Blend. Link
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Refuse collector, Kota, Batavia, Jakarta, Indonesia. in Indonesia
Martin Broomfield of 360 Cities took this panorama of a garbage collector/recycler in Jakarta, Indonesia, sitting down surveying his kingdom of recyclables.
It was typical to see garbage men pushing carts (like one behind the guy) filled with mounds of bags of aluminum cans and recyclable plastics when was living there more than 15 years ago. I wasn’t surprised that nothing much has changed.
If the embeddable player above doesn’t work for you, go here: Link – Thanks Jeffrey Martin!
It seems like all the new houses in my area are covered in stucco. I got to wondering, what else are houses made of, besides wood and brick? Well, now that’s nifty has 10 unique examples.
I saw a show on TV the other day, about this little town in Arizona, where everyone builds these houses out of tires, and they are almost entirely self sufficient. This got me wondering about what other types of housing material has been used. I found some pretty neat stuff.
A house made of trash. I guess no one will really notice that your house is messy, since it’s made of garbage.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by ninigoat.
Artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster have taken piles of trash and turned them into interesting abstract artworks depicting people or animals. The piece above is called White Trash (With Gulls), it is comprised of six month’s worth of trash and two dead sea gulls. The image portrayed is a self portrait of the artists relaxing with a glass of wine.
Link Via YesButNoButYes
The home of John R. Mallgren of Mastic Beach, New York was condemned for unsafe conditions. Workers then removed 85,000 pounds of debris from the property, which required 10 garbage trucks! The city is sending the $8,742 bill to the owner of the property, John W. Mallgren, who is the occupant’s father. He had tried to clean up the property before, but was threatened by his son. Town Supervisor Mark Lesko said a pit bull was also seized, and was taken to a shelter.
The younger Mallgren is due in District Court in Islip on Aug. 13 for a charge of second-degree menacing for allegedly threatening his father with a hammer, records state. He is also due in District Court in Patchogue on Aug. 20 to respond to the code violations, court officials said.
The younger Mallgren apparently accumulated the junk during the years he lived in the home, Lesko said, and seems to believe the debris has commercial value.
The man is “a menace in the neighborhood,” who let the home deteriorate into something “like a scene out of a movie,” Lesko said.
Link -via Huffington Post
Meet DustCart, a real-life Wall-E, created by Italian scientist Paolo Dario and colleagues at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna University.
The robotic trash bin can revolutionize trash collection in small Italian towns with small and windy streets inaccessible to large garbage trucks:
Like a taxi answering a call, DustCart rode across the terrace to meet the caller.
Once the robot arrived, it asked for a personal ID number that both identifies the user and tracks the garbage. It also asked for the kind of trash being dumped — organic, recyclable or waste. DustCart then opened its belly bin, collected the trash and took it to a fake dumping site.
Fulvio Paolocci and Angelica Marin of GlobalPost has the story (and lots of photos!): Link
(Photo: Fulvio Paolocci/Global Post)
53-year-old Eddie House of San Carlos, California recycles, composts, and finds homes for his discarded items. He reduced his household waste to the point that he cancelled his garbage pickup service last year. His reward is a lawsuit from the city!
The lawsuit, filed by San Carlos Deputy City Attorney Linda Noeske in San Mateo Superior Court on Jan. 22, seeks a permanent injunction forcing House to maintain garbage service. City officials are also seeking to recoup from House the costs of the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims House broke the city’s municipal code requiring all residential, commercial and industrial properties to contract with Allied Waste for pickup at least once a week — a standard requirement in most cities, San Carlos Deputy City Manager Brian Moura said.
Moura said the suit was the result of complaints from neighbors about House burning garbage. House says he only burns wood. Link -via Geek Like Me
(image credit: Juan Carlos Pometta Betancourt/The Examiner)
