Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Come on guys, lighten up. From what I've read and understand, David has made the mistake of admitting to taking waste oil that had no legal owner without asking - no crime committed and little, if any, harm done.

Anyway, as far as this thread is concerned this sideline is valuable because it illustrates that people are "touchy" around the area of wvo supply. It shows that people can switch from selfless to selfish with a little provocation. It also implies that supplies aren't so readily available and are to be protected.

Even the language used is suspect, 'secured' a supply of wvo. What with? Armed guard? The threat of nuclear retaliation? No wonder we're fighting a war in Iran over oil.

Yes my oil is given to me freely but is by no means secure. If someone came along and offered a few dollars per pick up my supply 'security' would evaporate. That's commercial reality and someone will 'secure' their supply with money. Even goodwill has a price. How long do you think it will take before our free supplies become, say $5 per 20 litre drum? 25 cents a litre is outrageous .......... or is it?

cheers, Michael

[zigparacingtadpole Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zigparacingtadpole]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

If you think $0.25/ltr is a bit rich, check out ebay at the moment. Some dude in Sydney (I think) currently has 10000l of the stuff with a starting price of $5K and a buy it now price of $7K.
The going rate for collectors to pay in Adelaide is around $50/200l depending on frequency of collection etc. I had one establishment tell me that I could have their oil provided I was willing to double the pick up fee and payout the broken contract clause.
The ridiculous thing about all of this is that I can buy new canola oil currently for $130/200l (although given the lack of rain I guess this will rise soon too).
I too have had people pilfer my oil. I went to empty a drum I had onsite one day, only to discover that a collection company had cut my lock off, and stencilled their logo onto my drum (still identifiable as mine because they hadn't even removed my 'property of' sticker). I left and returned with a couple of mates and a trailer to remove my drum. I went and saw the owner who's attitude was 'bad luck mate, they pay you dont'. I rang the collection company and told them what had happened, the manager told me that <insert 'c' expletive here> like me should stop getting in his way of earning a buck, and then going on to tell me that if the drum was missing he would have me charged with theft also. Bring it on pal!!!! If war is your wish, war you shall have.
I heard a rumour that the collection company concernend attracted the attention of both the EPA and Worksafe for some minor breaches of environmental and workplace conduct. Of course once you attract the attention of an organisation such as the EPA and Worksafe you never really leave the radar. Thats karma people!
To get back on topic, I am selfless in that I will assist those who need it where possible, but when it comes to my supply of oil, dont mess with me (if I want to give it away, I ring people who I know have trouble sourcing it and ask if they need any). Its taken me a long time to organise the tenuous supply I have and have no intention of giving it up without a fight. I guess to that end I am selfish.
And for the record it was not I that complained to the EPA about the trucks leaking engine oil all over the ground, nor did I ring worksafe and tell them about the tractor thingy with an unguarded PTO drive hanging out the back waiting to turn one of the employees in mince.
Just goes to reinforce Michael's point doesnt it.

[Sauman Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Sauman]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

"Be the change you want to see"....Ghandhi
Knowledge enrichment and empowerment.Self discipline and collective action.
Life long learning...
Take care Folks
We can olny do it together.Keep debates going.The perception of the collective scenarion and remedies is all our responsibility.So lets do justice to the cause.

Cheers
Sauman

[Fitian Was here Find all posts View Profile Close Fitian]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

It is not right to judge others and no one has the right to call someone else a theif publicly. I strongly belive that David deserves an apology publicly.

The BMW example is also out of place and does not fit or help the situation here.

A lot of items like vaccuum machines and computers can be found near rubbish bins that have more of an obvious value if compared to old waste oil and people pick them up without asking. Does this makes them thieves?

Many would agree that lot of small cafes and resturants do not have a space at the back to keep the old oil, this is why they put it back into the original drum and leave it next to the rubbish bin to be picked up by who ever. I pick up oil form two places in the same manner. Sometimes I find oil and other times it is gone. (Does this makes me a theif too?). And since there was lots of empty boxes and rubbish around together with these drums, then they are rubbish all together. I do not really think the owner of the shop will have time for talking about rubbish. On the other hand I pick up oil from a place where they had someone collecting their oil but was not reliable enough so they told him to take his drums away and got me to bring my own since I promised to pick up the oil within 24 hours. Some other places I got told that there is a guy that comes to pick the oil and uses it for fuel and I say thank you and go. At the end of the day we are using someone elses rubbish to do good thing with it so we are talking about rubbish but this does not mean that we give each other rubbish.

I have got a lot more to say but I will leave it at that.

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

MB300

"It is not right to judge others and no one has the right to call someone else a thief publicly. I strongly believe that David deserves an apology publicly."

Nobody called anybody a thief and no apologies are necessary. What was said was that taking something without asking is THEFT, and thats the law, like it or not.

It matters not where the oil was found. It belongs to someone. In the case of oil placed in a tradional place for refuse collection, I think you will find that the "refuse" belongs to the council and there are strong penalties for "illegally" removing items from that area.

Personally I believe very strongly that the home brewer is an endangered species unless they grow their own feedstock or are prepared to pay for their oil.

As the wheel begins to turn in favour of alternative fuels, all traditional feed stocks are coming under more and more pressure and as demand goes up so will the price we all pay, including having to pay for waste veg oil, left in dumpsters, behind the greasy spoon.

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Hi Slippery,

Unless the law has changed in the last two years I believe you are incorrect. Unless the bins / dumpsters etc. labelled 'the property of....' OR the bins are on private property, the contents are in no man's land, in legal limbo if you will.

So trash in your bin inside your fence is yours, trash in your bin outside your fence is fair game, trash once in the garbage truck is the councils. It's the main reason shredders exist.

Your analogy of the BMW with keys in ignition is a poor one as the car is presumably registered, therefore has a legal owner. The waste oil beside the dump bins probably did not have a legal owner. That said someone may have had a moral claim on the oil, but that is totally different matter.

When you talk of a person and "where is the honour amoung thieves" in the same breath, then liken their actions to stealing a BMW, any reasonable person would conclude you are talking about that individual and including them in the "thieves" category. So I respectfully suggest you do a bit of back peddling.

Take it easy,

Michael

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Michael,

In actual fact David labelled himself as a thief. Lets examine parts of his posts:-

"Being the terrible, selfish and opportunist person I am, If I have seen a stack of oil drums out the back of a place near the dumpsters, I pick it up. Right or wrong I don't sit there contemplating the whys, what if's or any other lofty possibilities, If there is no indication the oil is anything but what someone wants to get rid of, I take it."

And

"I think everyone in the Veg oil community needs to be a little careful and look in the mirror before they go pointing the finger.
Everyone that makes their own Bio and doesn’t’ pay the 38C a liter tax on it is stealing from the government and is guilty of theft and tax evasion. I think that pretty much makes every home brewer a criminal and lacking in morals by your standards and certainly makes them criminals by the letter of the law."

I think that by saying he collected the waste veg oil I can safely assume he is a home brewer.

By being a home brewer, if he does not pay the .38 c excise he has painted himself as a thief in his own words.

If it makes you feel happier I will retract any assumption I have made and any reference to anybody, real or fictional, actual or hypothetical, that may feel they have been slurred, whether or not they themselves stated they were thieves, by any reference to them being called a thief for taking any possession, real or hypothetical, without first asking if it actually is rubbish or does it "belong" to anybody.

SHEEESH!

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Slippery,

Your conclusions are again based on assumptions that are incorrect.

The suggested retraction was not for my benefit, but yours actually. I had hoped, foolishly as it transpires, you might rise to the occasion. Alas all you produced was a pseudo intellectual, legalese and sarcastic response.

Such is life................

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Yeah, that word, making an ass of u and me.

I am cool and happy where I am so lets move on.

Otherside, you said

"I wish you every success with your "algae oil," Slippery. I would be curious to know how much oil can be produced in a "wheelie bin" and how quickly."

I am only just getting my experiments up and running and will let you know how they pan out. Don't expect an answer this year though. There's a long road ahead of me.


Tony – you said

“look forward to learning the secrets.

Unfortunately, the production of algae biodiesel from fossil fuel (coal, nat'l gas, oil) thermal power stations will not directly cause a reduction in the greenhouse emissions, because the fuel will be burnt, and will convert to atmospheric CO2."

Partly true, but if you are adding the algae oil back into the boilers and taking out the flue gases you are reducing the Co2 gas in the air.You will still need to burn coal that produces Co2 and that is taken out of the atmosphere, into the algae and so the circle continues.

If the Co2 is used to grow algae that is used to produce biodiesel, the emmissions from using biodiesel instead of dinojuice will reduce Co2 in the atmosphere.

Gsmiley you said
“Direct sunlight = about 1 kilowatt/square metre. Green plants only use a narrow band in the red area, say 100 watts maximum available and most of their energy use is not to store fatty acids for you, they are just trying to beat the competition and reproduce. If you got ten usable watts stored up times a ten hour day you would be lucky. That's less than 1 cent worth of energy per day. So it won't be a wheely bin, maybe an acre of pond area to make the 1500 litres or so you use to commute per annum.”

Over the last 6 months I have had several conversations with people who "know" that you cannot grow algae economically because there is just not enough sunlight to produce enough to make it viable. Not one of them have actually done any real time experiments. They all sprout words of wisdom extracted from books.

Stuff the books. I am Wilbur Wright of the algae world and say algae can fly and aim to prove it.

I have got to the stage that I am like the little kid told not to touch the hot stove - you will get burned. Well I have a pretty good medical kit and a paddock of aloe vera and if I get burned, next time I will know to use an oven glove.

I do not mean to sound arrogant because I am not that sort of person but I am just so fed up with people saying it cannot be done.

Can I ask what steps you, each of you reading this thread, are taking to reduce the Co2 in our atmosphere?????????? I am not talking a couple of thousand kilo's a year by taking the Mazda Neo to the shops instead of the Landcruiser.

Is anybody else in Australia really doing meaningful research and development or are they intending to do so?

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

"Can I ask what steps you, each of you reading this thread, are taking to reduce the Co2 in our atmosphere?????????? I am not talking a couple of thousand kilo's a year by taking the Mazda Neo to the shops instead of the Landcruiser." Slippery

I think my site
Smaller footprint?
answers the question for me. The site (like my farm and me) is an unfinished work in progress, so it ain't perfect and never will be.

You asked is anyone really doing meaningful research? That's quite a broad and subjective question - care to narrow it down a little?

One Australian I think who will change the face of the planet is to be found here Water Unlimited - A proposal for the large scale solar deslination of water. Unfortunately his site is woefully out of date as he now has a wind powered, compressor driven, heat exchanger, atmospheric water extractor. This simple device should be on the market in about 4 months and will initially cost the same as a quality car ($40K???). It is claimed to operates a windspeeds of 2 kmp and 30% humidity and extract 12,000 litres of atmospheric water a day, all with a 2 metre diameter fan!!

This invention of lateral thinking will change the world, as the water is freely available and easily extracted anywhere using renewable energy. Comparatively clean, no ground water extraction (bores), no dams or diverted river flows, the implications for off grid supplies is huge. Well I'm impressed anyway.

All the best, Michael

[Guest Close David]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Michael,

In actual fact David labelled himself as a thief. Lets examine parts of his posts:-

Everyone that makes their own Bio and doesn’t’ pay the 38C a liter tax on it is stealing from the government and is guilty of theft and tax evasion. I think that pretty much makes every home brewer a criminal and lacking in morals by your standards and certainly makes them criminals by the letter of the law."

I think that by saying he collected the waste veg oil I can safely assume he is a home brewer.

By being a home brewer, if he does not pay the .38 c excise he has painted himself as a thief in his own words.

If it makes you feel happier I will retract any assumption I have made and any reference to anybody, real or fictional, actual or hypothetical, that may feel they have been slurred, whether or not they themselves stated they were thieves, by any reference to them being called a thief for taking any possession, real or hypothetical, without first asking if it actually is rubbish or does it "belong" to anybody.

SHEEESH!

Speaking of making asses out of you.....

I was going to let it slide but I think it is time to put some of these "Holier than thou" attitudes into perspective.

Unfortunately slippery your "safe" conclusion is completely wrong and ill founded.

I DO NOT make Bio.
I never have and have no plans to either as there are other ways of fueling a car on veg oil that you apparently choose to ignore or may be ignorant to. Instead of jumping to this self serving and totally erroneous conclusion, I would suggest it may have been wise to have done a little research before being so quick to judge and condem someone on a single statement.

What is obvious from your comments, is that you do percieve all home brewers as theives. I'm pretty sure that at best there may be a scant handful of people that do pay the exise so by your statement, you have catergoricaly labeled all the rest, if not all home brewers as thieves. I'm sure this would make a very interesting topic in the general biodiesel disscussion area.
I'll quote what you have said here and see what other people have to say about your thoughts.

Perhaps you may like to take a moment to have a look at how you are painting yourself with your own words before adding any further comments and assess what the most appropriate reply from here would be.

Given the situations of the oil I have collected, after doing some research it is apparent I am fully within my legal and moral rights to have done so.

In any event, I'm pretty sure that no rational and right thinking people are going to be worried about me taking old oil from piles of rubbish or think any the less of me for doing so.
Those that do have a problem will just have to find someone else to be moral gaurdian for because as I said previously, we all have our own standards and I am plenty happy with mine.

I hope those that are so quick to label others and take such a moral high ground over something as petty as rubbish make certain they live up to the level of their own standards they are so quick to condem others for not living up to and could never be accused of any wrong doing by people that want to be judgemental over what they do.

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Dave,

"I DO NOT make Bio.
I never have and have no plans to either as there are other ways of fueling a car on veg oil that you apparently choose to ignore or may be ignorant to. Instead of jumping to this self serving and totally erroneous conclusion, I would suggest it may have been wise to have done a little research before being so quick to judge and condem someone on a single statement."

You asked me to to do some research so lets do that. Do you use the WVO, in any form, to fuel a vehicle, of any shape or size, used either on or off road, and in any proportion?

And a bit more research shows that in none of my posts did I say that I thought home brewers were thieves - those words were written by you:-

"Everyone that makes their own Bio and doesn’t’ pay the 38C a liter tax on it is stealing from the government and is guilty of theft and tax evasion. I think that pretty much makes every home brewer a criminal and lacking in morals by your standards and certainly makes them criminals by the letter of the law."

I have no problems with people making their own fuel and feel quite strongly that home made fuel should be exempt from excise. However, the law is the law.

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Just a quick point before get too far off track (as if we aren't already)

And anyone in the know please correct me if I'm wrong. I believe that in Australia fuel is now taxed regardless of use and then you apply for a rebate (whatever it's called now) for business use, mining, farming, off road etc. However cooking oil (new or used) is classified by the ATO as a food and not subject to tax. If you modify veg oil (blend it or process it) to be a fuel it is then subject to tax and other more onerous compliance issues.

So my understanding is a two tank svo/wvo systems that use tax paid dino diesel for start up and straight wvo/svo in a second tank are currently legal. Blenders 'creating' a fuel and biodiesel makers should be paying tax aka fuel excise. The straight veg oil (new or used) users are taxation legal at this point in time as they are consuming a food.

True or false?

Michael

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

My understanding is that if you put it into a fuel tank and run a vehicle, either off road or on road, you pay the excise.

This is a tax that is supposed to be used to maintain our roads , so the government is not going to forgo their share just because you are using a vegie oil of any description.

Then there is the question of whether or not a vehicle that has been converted to run on veggie oil is legally road worthy or not. Has anybody had a veggie fired car complianced?

Under certain circumstances you are able to claim a rebate of some or all of the excise.

[dillyman Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dillyman]

Re: Are you; selfish, selfless or ambivalent??

Hi People,

I have been waiting to see this type of posting. Inevitable I feel, it had to happen. From the beginning I met resistance to assistance from some local community activity. However to declare myself; I must say that although my focus is initially suited to my pocket, having retired earlier than expected through health issues, I do embrace the enviromental issues as an essential aspect of the type of activity we are involved in. I have spent many many years in Government, with employment at CEO levels. I have very little trust in general in the continuance of any consistancy from the halls of power, fickle, could be used as a suitable appropriate feeling. I always have attempted to assist anyone who asks for assistance in these common interest matters. However I also must say that I have learned over years that information and assistance has to some extent need to be earned. I reach out readily to requests, however, it needs some effort, although not to much but enough to demonstrate a reasonable commitment to the task rather than a free ride. My experiences have not been very good, I have not found it prudent to continue the support because of a poor willingness to either get hands dirty or do something for themselves. Remarkable how little effort many people are prepared to commit, thus the questions continue almost to the point (unlike a child who at least comes out directly with the request to do it for them) That to me is the time to sever the knowledge source. The general info about the facts relating to enviromental factors I make freely available to them , But, it is NOT really what they are after. I have not yet been able to mentor any one up to present around here for these reasons. Considering I have been almost prepared to hold their hand to assist. My hope was for a small co-op . However not to be. To some extent I see evidence of some of this on our own forum. However, we all have our own agenda, that is a fact of life. I am fortunate to have a steady supply from one source and more has been available from other resources. To do this takes commitment, if one accepts a source consistancy and honesty is a pre-requesite I believe. I have had 'Milkers' from my drum, the owners are now very guarded about my supply and I have lost little, even though I could afford it. I have to give some away to a fellow who is prepared to do a diesel cut wvo useage. but this is on my terms as reliability is paramount. Think carefully people the wider issues are still there and not going away. However, it would be easy to be foolish and forego the issues. Would you give 25% of your job to someone. Think a little about it. My main recreation is in Mobile home camping. So for me an issue. Making one mistake, can have a far reaching effect. To draw the analogy, let John know who you are and what you do and you would alter much of your hobby's orientation. Similarly, be indiscreet, and p---? someone off can have the same effect. Not scare mongering just fair warning all are not as many of our members who demonstrate the support and alliance which is all that is good. Whataver we choose to do, we will have to pay the piper!!! Fingers crossed that common sense will prevail. But, be not surprised of any change in outcomes.

With the future in mind,

Best regards people

Dillyman