birding-aus

Penguin suits ... shopping bags ... knits

To: Birding-Aus <>
Subject: Penguin suits ... shopping bags ... knits
From: Valerie Curtis <>
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 19:12:08 +1000
About plastic bags.........Once upon a time we were staying in a caravan in
a forest in Victoria and after having devoured a 'cooked chook' for our
evening meal, the bones thereof were wrapped up in a horrible plastic bag
and placed outside the caravan to be disposed of properly at a later time.
Alas this was not possible because a very large Goanna (is it Lace Monitor?)
found it first. We were first aware of this when we heard rustling outside
the door, we opened the door to have a look and disturbed the Goanna which
moved away a short distance. The plastic bag was hanging out of the side of
its mouth about half in and half out.
We tried to get close to it to either get hold of the bag or the creature's
tail but it didn't know that we were trying to help so scuttled up a nearby
tree. It went about 2 meters up the tree and stayed there trying to scrape
the horrible thing out of its mouth. Very distressing to watch, I can assure
you. With a rake we tried to reach the bag hoping that we could catch it and
pull it free but the poor animal just scuttled further up the tree where it
continued to scrape away at the disgusting thing hanging out of its mouth.
It was a very disturbing experience for us and probably even more
disturbing, not to mention painful, for the Goanna; I just hope it wasn't
fatal. I have been extremely careful about the proper disposal of plastic
bags and all other forms of plastic since.

PS. Penn Gwynne, did you wear the Adelaide Crows knitted suit? That would be
a merry sight and cause much laughter; it might even win a competition. I'm
sorry to say I am not a knitter but I have all sorts of non-plastic shopping
bags that are never with me when I am in the supermarket. So inevitably I
have to use the horrible plastic bags and I always say, "fill the bags up,
please" and "put everything in together, please" and then I re-use the bags
for garbage bags. Is that OK?

-----Original Message-----
From: 
 Behalf Of Brian Fleming
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 6:16 PM
To: Penn Gwynne; 
Subject: Penguin suits ... shopping bags ... knits

Penn Gwynne wrote:
>
> Dearest sweet true ladies of this list.
>
> Not long ago I asked many of you beautiful fair damsels could you help
> with knitting some penguin suits. You did to the point it took ages to
> get the smile off my face, beautiful to know so many care. Sad about
> the lack of male knits though. One lady who wishes to remain anonymous
> knitted up a "Adelaide Crows" penguin suit which one a competition. It
> was brilliant and made many laugh when worn. I siincerely thank you
> all.
>
> Don't stop knitting but could you give this some thought please?
>
> Each year 6.5 BILLION yep BILLION not million plastic bags are used in
> Australia. Many sadly end up killing wild birds, mammals and animals,
> let alone spoil the very beautiful land of Australia.
>
> Talk has started here in Victoria about imposing a 25 cents per bag
> surcharge, I don't think thats thee answer but something sure has to
> be done rather then leave it to private enterprise.
>
> I was wondering about hand knitted shopping bags that resemble or have
> a bird "mo teeth" on them? owl about Birds Australia or BOCA shopping
> bags?
>
> Come on everyone this really is private enterprise madness at its
> best,
> lets stop and think, then change this plastic bag lunacy.
>
> Do we still have a good sized stockpile of wool?
>
> JAG thinking of a gold and "Aubergine" striped hand knitted shopping
> bag, or one with his Eggy on it?
>
Dear JAG, we hope you have recovered from that fall you had.
Shopping Bags - I agree, we all need strong re-usable cloth bags to put
our shopping in, so we can save whales and turtles from swallowing
platic bags with fatal results.
But I don't think knitting wool is good material for bags however
zealously we knit. But maybe people could make up cotton bags with a
good simple environmental messsage or motif stencilled or screen-printed
on them?
Actually I have one, used most days, issued by Banyule City Council.
Many other councils do the same. Cost me $2.00 and well worth it. The
only time I want a plastic bag is for the stuff i put in insulated bag
or esky. Mainly to line it and collect spillage - it's hell getting
yoghurt off the inside of a bag which won't turn inside out!
If I had to pay 25c for a placcy bag I wouldn't mind a bit.
All the best,
Anthea Fleming

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