Is it safe to grow Mono Ammonium Phosphate crystals in water mixed with Sharpie ink?
I have little knowledge of chemistry and sorry if this is a dumb question (or questions rather) or if I'm asking it in the wrong sub. Anyhow, I got a crystal growing kit from the Dollar Tree, (Mono Ammonium Phosphate) thought it might grow "pine needle" crystals, and was surprised when it grew bigger crystals than that. I wanted to grow crystals with a different color and was out of food coloring so I decided to try mixing Sharpie ink in with the solution. It kind of looked like it "boiled"? I know it wasn't actually boiling but that's the only way I know how to describe it aside from it sort of tore the ink apart? I didn't feel like I should try to grow crystals with it after that, and I didn't know what to do with it so I put a lid on it and left it near a window to slowly evaporate until I figured out what to do with it. I looked into the chemicals in Sharpie ink and I'm wondering if anything could have had a reaction I should be concerned about? Should I go ahead and try to grow the crystals or should I get rid of it? Can I safely dispose of it at home or do I need to contact a hazardous waste disposal center? I can't figure out what it is and I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not.
Hi all, I've been putting together info for how to recycle in Tucson while leveraging all the recycling options that are open to me: curbside, the city's upcoming glass drop-off, local and mail-in corporate-sponsored, and TerraCycle (a paid option). I aim to reuse or recycle every last bit of waste coming out of our house, no matter how crazy it may seem. Partly I just want to see how difficult it is; I recognize that my process isn't practical for most people. Anyway, here's what I've gathered so far.
General principles
COMPOST: If it can be composted, compost it! (More on this below.)
REUSE: If it can't be composted, reuse it! Reuse is always the most environmentally-friendly option.
DONATE: If it can't be reused by you, donate it if it's something worth donating that someone else could use. https://tucsoncleanandbeautiful.org/ has a great directory for places that will accept various materials. Cero is a Tucson store that also accepts lots of stuff for donation and reuse. Donation usually involves transportation and some kind of carbon emissions, but it's still better than recycling. Don't donate junk! Donations aren't a free trash can.
MUNICIPAL RECYCLING: If it can't be donated, recycle it locally using municipal recycling (curbside or drop-off). Recycle Coach has all the info you need on what municipal recycling can or can't recycle. ESGD's page on residential recycling also has some important guidelines. Recycling uses energy and involves carbon-emitting transport, plus not everything in a recycling waste stream actually gets recycled, so try to reuse first.
LOCAL STORE DROP-OFF: If it can't be recycled using municipal recycling, recycle it at a local store for free. Earth911 has a search page that finds these stores and breaks them down by type, and TerraCycle's corporate-sponsored programs page also has some local programs. These programs typically ship their waste to a recycling partner, often TerraCycle in New Jersey, which adds to the environmental footprint of the process, so try to recycle municipally first.
FREE MAIL-IN: If it can't be recycled at a local store, use one of TerraCycle's free corporate-sponsored mail-in programs. These programs end up sending waste TerraCycle, just like the local store drop-offs, but are arguably less efficient than sending a big communal batch of stuff, so try to use the local store drop-offs first.
TERRACYCLE (PAID): If it can't be recycled using a mail-in program, use a paid all-in-one box to have TerraCycle recycle it if it's small and light. This is effectively the same as using one of the mail-in options above except that you have to pay, so try to use a mail-in program first.
REGIONAL DROP-OFF: If it's a big bulky waste that can't be donated, see if it can be recycled outside of Tucson (e.g., save up Styrofoam for the next time I drive to Phoenix, where they do have the appropriate facilities). TerraCycle accepts almost anything, but their all-in-one boxes are pricey, so it may make more sense to save up big hard-to-recycle stuff like packaging for Phoenix or another big city, if you think you'll drive there at some point. Don't make unnecessary trips just to drop off waste!
GOLDEN RULE #1: Make sure that the material is clean. Clean waste streams are more valuable to recyclers, which helps keep costs down. Don't use too much water cleaning up stuff, but don't feel too guilty about using water, either! Dishwater usage is a tiny sliver of household water consumption, not to mention that industry and agriculture generally use much more water than homes.
GOLDEN RULE #2: The goal of recycling is to break down your waste into "primary materials" (e.g., plastic, metal, paper, glass) that can be used by industry to make new products. The more mixed your materials, the more you need to research how to recycle it. Knowing the basics goes a long way. For example, I know that metal cans get melted down, so a paper or plastic label attached to the can doesn't worry me because I know that it will get burned off. But what about a milk carton, which is paper fused with plastic? Or the circuitry inside the plastic base of a CFL bulb? If you can't intuitively explain how the thing is going to get broken down into its primary materials, that's your cue that you need to do some research.
GOLDEN RULE #3: Knowing the basics of how recycling centers work goes a long way. For example, if you know that you can't recycle plastic grocery bags curbside because they get stuck in the machines, that's a hint that you shouldn't try to recycle your plastic food wrap, either. Or if you know that plastic bottle caps fall through the holes of a separator, that's a hint that you need to research whether your beer bottle caps are recyclable (even though they're metal).
Reuse and recycling guide for my home
This is not a comprehensive list of every recycling resource in Tucson, this is just for my house my household's needs. I've found that there's no one-size-fits-all solution if you want to reach close to 100% recycling/reuse, you end up having to come up with a list that's customized for your home, which requires research. I'm providing my list as a potential template as well as for inspiration. Legend:
Batteries and Bulbs batteries = drop off at a local Batteries and Bulbs (program page); don't mix with other Batteries and Bulbs recycling
Batteries and Bulbs bulbs = ditto
Gillette = mail-in/drop-off program (there's a drop-off point at Bullets Barber Shop in midtown; note that the Beauty Republic listing on TerraCycle's program page is inaccurate. I spoke with Beauty Republic's owner and confirmed this.)
Rechargeable batteries and battery packs (e.g., lithium ion): Batteries and Bulbs batteries
Alkaline and other single-use batteries: TerraCycle
Bulbs: Batteries and Bulbs bulbs
Cleaning supplies
Used wipes: TerraCycle
Non-tub, hard plastic containers (laundry, spray bottles, etc.): curbside
Other
Fabric scraps: Cero reuse
Plastic mailers (e.g., those bubble wrap pouches that Amazon sometimes uses; as long as they're clean and in reusable condition): Cero reuse
Stationery (e.g., pens, glue sticks, paint sets, flexible packaging; NOT white out): Cero stationery
Styrofoam: small items go to TerraCycle, big bulky items (e.g., box packaging) go to The Perfect Block
How do I sort all this?
Right now, I'm using a makeshift system of lots and lots of bags to keep everything separate. My idea is to do a monthly "recycling day" and drop off everything that needs to be dropped off as well as mail in everything that needs to be mailed in. I haven't had to do this yet since I started this project. I hope to build a sorting station in my house once I understand my needs a bit better.
Notes on TerraCycle and partner programs
A lot of the corporate-sponsored/mail-in/drop-off programs are done through TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based recycler that specializes in recycling hard-to-recycle things (e.g., potato chip bags, toothbrushes). They make lots of their money through large corporations, which essentially pay them to process unprofitable waste in order to burnish their environmental stewardship bona fides. They also offer paid recycling pouches and boxes to the general public. You mail in these pouches/boxes (they come with a shipping label) after filling them up with recyclable waste. TerraCycle will recycle almost anything and everything. However, anything that gets recycled through them or one of their corporate programs is shipped to New Jersey for processing, so it's preferable to reuse or recycle locally. They're also not as transparent as I wish they would be. I'm not certain, for example, how much of each waste stream actually gets recycled. They have a customer support contact form that's been very good for getting my questions answered, but beware that they take about 2-3 days to get back to you per request. I bought the large "all-in-one" box from their site and found a coupon code online to bring the cost down to around $350. I read a review elsewhere from someone who got a medium box (about 50% the size) who said that it lasted her six months. My idea is to use this box as "recycling of last resort" and rely on drop-off programs as much as possible to keep costs down. On the other hand, this makes my life more complicated in terms of sorting different waste streams, so you could simplify by putting waste destined for various drop-off points into a single TerraCycle all-in-one box. You need to register for free on their website to use their mail-in programs. Many of their mail-in programs unfortunately have wait lists. Of the ~15 programs for which I signed up around two weeks ago, about 8 had wait lists, and I got off the wait list for about 5 of them. So they seem to go through the list pretty regularly. Once you're in, you can print off a free UPS label from the "my profile" section of the site after logging in. If I had to take a wild guess, I would assume that TerraCycle has a higher rate of recycling than municipal programs, but this must be balanced against the financial and environmental cost of shipping waste to their facilities.
Composting
The Achilles' heel in my recycling and reuse plan is organic matter. The City of Tucson has a composting program but it's only open to businesses. There are a few volunteer-run programs here and there that accept compostable waste. I managed to sign up for one, UA's Compost Cats, and will be meeting them tomorrow to pick up my sealed composting bucket and go over the program rules. I know that they have limited capacity, so you have to email them. They took about a week to get back to me.
Alena at Desert Rose Collective, who makes beautiful household goods from reused local bottles, jars and other materials. (Btw, I emailed her and she explained that she's not currently accepting donations for reuse due to COVID-19, but that in the future she plans to accept glass jars or bottles with lids.)
1-A planet that has plant lifes that can grow in every organic substince very fast. Resulting everyone who set a foot in this planet devored by untold billons of micro seeds on the skin. Sucking up nutritions And killing them. 2-The planet has massive, godzilla like creatures roaming around and stepping on everything 3-The planet is house to untold trillons of diseses, bacteria, parasites And viruses 4-The planets weather changes rapidly. One seconds its hot enough to boild your blood, another second is cold enough to freeze it. 5-A planet with massive solar waves And ion storms that result it giant storms And perventing technology to function properly. 6- The planet has suffered a supervolcano eruption, burying the cities in ash and reducing the sun to a dim bulb in the sky even at high noon. 7- The planet was host to a botched gravity manipulation experiment, and now shifts in the gravity are as frequent as changes in the weather, including brutal "grav storms" that will literally fling anything not bolted down into orbit. 8- The planet is a hazardous waste dump for an advanced species. Anything from yesterday's lunch, to surplus military weapons, to small quantities of anti-matter in expired containment units could be going to the surface to become someone else's problem. 9- The entire planet has been declared a memorial to the intelligent species that once lived there. Their cities and homes are kept pristine by an army of robots... which will brutally expunge anything disrupting the sanctity of the memorial. 10- The planet is tidally locked to the sun, resulting in a blasted day-side hellscape and a cold perpetual night on the opposite side. 11- A planet with extremely fine and sharp dust due to a lack of any binding water. This dust would wear down anything rather quickly and it would end up everywhere. They would also create thunderstorms due to static electricity. 12- A planet with extremely a high density atmosphere. 13- A planet with vast deposits of Gallium. During summer when the heat builds up entire land masses shift over the molten metal, every year the geography of the entire world shifts and rivers of liquid metal make certain areas uninhabitable. 14- A planet where terraforming efforts have catastrophically failed. To resolve, roll again. The second result is an unexpected side effect, which appeared late in the process. If not for this side effect, the planetary environment would have been very pleasant for a variety of lifeforms. 15- -This planet is a jungle world so choked with vegetation the planet's earthen surface can't be found. The canopy layers are similar to the layer zones of oceans; the deeper one goes the less light there is, the stranger the life becomes, and the more hostile the conditions get. 16- -A dry desert planet with no resources of any kind, but is used as a testing ground for many experimental military equipment and munitions. Expect unexploded ordanence, rouge AI with guns, unstable energy weapons, and random blasts from orbital weapon platforms. 17- -The planet teeters dangerously close to a black hole but is held in place with a 'spatial anchor' on it's surface. Everything else that comes close to the black hole is sucked in so the planet is constantly bombarded with chunks of other broken planets 18- -A rouge planet that has no light of any kind. The clouds prevent any stars from being seen. It's totally silent here. There is something down there. Darkness equals death. Don't take your eyes off the light. Don't shine light into the dark. 19- Planet which is covered by a green mold that has completely encased everything 20- A planet covered in self replicating nanites. Any thing that touches the surface gets dissolved by the nanites. 21- A planet with permanent extremely violent storms. 22- A planet surrounded by killer satellites. The satellites fire on any non-native lifeforms on the planet. 23- A planet that was used for biological weapons testing. Horrific mutated monstrosities hunt and kill anything on the surface. 24- A planet that was used for robotic weapons testing. Prototype war machines hunt and kill anything on the surface. 25- Hordes of ghost wander around the planet and suck the life out of the living. 26- The entire planet is booby trapped. 27- The planet is a nuclear wasteland. Most of the world is covered in lethal levels of radiation. 28- The planet passes through a debris cloud. The ground is regularly hammered by meteorites. 29- The planets atmosphere acts like a drug. Drug causes (apathy, euphoria, mindless rage, paralysis, sleep, weakness). 30- The planets atmosphere is acidic. 31- The planets atmosphere is saturated with mutagens. Any person or creature exposed to the atmosphere mutates into horrific a creature. 32- The planets atmosphere is toxic. 33- The planet is covered in a fungal forest. The surface is constantly covered in a cloud of spores. The spores are lethal to those who breath them. 34- The planet suffered a zombie apocalypse. All the people and creatures on the planet are mindless zombies that attack the living. 35- The planet was host to a dimensional gateway experiment. Gateways randomly appear and disappear all around the planet. The gates often open to something dangerous (in or near a black hole / in or near a star / in a magma pocket / in the vacuum of space). 36- A planet that recently drew a moon into its Roche limit, ripping it apart. There's a belt around the equator where moon debris the size of Alaska rains down on all sides constantly, and will for the next 100,000 years. 37- • The planet is travelling through time at an accelerated pace. Days pass in seconds, and years pass in minutes. Before you can find out what's going on, it's too late. you've arrived at the heat-death of the universe 38- • The surface is covered by a relatively thin membrane separating the dangerous liquids from the atmosphere. From the outside, it appears that life can thrive on this planet, but only if it can distribute its weight well enough. 39- • This planet has converted its entire population into pure energy by mistake. Given the continued absence of life on the planet, it's safe to assume the machine is still active. 40- The planet had a breathable atmosphere, earth-like gravity, and a lush biosphere. However, due to the combined action of it's moons and the activity of the star it orbits, surface wind speeds seldom drop below 320km/h, with average rainfall over 12m/day. While the planet is theoretically habitable, attempting a landing is suicidal. 41- This planet is in a hyper-elliptic orbit around a massively dense star, being flung into the deep reaches of space, cold and freezing, before eventually reaching its apex, and beginning a gradual increase in speed until it is hurtling through space, briefly passing so near the star the atmosphere boils off, before being flung off into deep space and freezing over once again. 42- This “planet” is the body of a long dead gigantic being. It’s festering corpse was big enough to hold an atmosphere, and its rotting body produced fumes that made up a sickly yellow sky full of toxic gas. The ground is soft and mushy due to the decayed muscle underfoot, and may swallow you like quicksand. The life forms found here are mostly descended from gigantic parasites that were in the original creature. These parasites have evolved into different things, but still keep many parasitic features, making even the smallest plant dangerous. The seas are made a mix of body fluids, which rain down from blood red clouds. They are extremely acidic and contaminated with all sorts of bacteria, so caution is required in making any sort of water here. The surface has many great gaps and holes, leading into the dark abyss below. This underground houses the most predators, who consume the “planet” from the inside out. 43- Most of the animal life has evolved to be hyper-intelligent when it comes to survival. The simplest predator is as smart as the average teenager and there seem to be plenty of species that hunt for fun. 44- Planet was hit by a gamma ray burst that scourged it of most life either recently or long ago 45- Planet was terraformed by a long-dead race leaving relics like island size nuclear reactors, ancient machines waiting to be rewoken (Illus from the Expanse) 46- An arid planet with seas made of acid that rotate around the planet with the gravity of its moon wiping out everything in cycles 47- A planet that, at random times at least once per week, incenses it's gravity tenfold for one minute. Makes life near impossible and a death sentence for any travelers 48- The entire planet is constructed of thin sticks of balsa wood and canvas, painted to look like mundane rocks, ground and flora. A single wrong step upon its surface may lead to a lengthy and very crunchy fall to the planet’s core. It’s obvious that some force created this world as some sort of insane art project, but for what purpose? 49- A planet where every plant, animal and even the very earth had some form of venom or poison. It was very popular in Koronus for assassins. However, it was difficult to get to. The equatorial ring was the only place habitation could occur, any attempts to expand further into the jungles and forests of the planet lead to extreme casualties. Eventually a bunch of various manufactorums spread across the equator, however greed lead to war. To solve this issue, each manufactorum had a specific plot of land surrounded by a massive wall. They were separated from their neighbouring facilities by demilitarized zones. 50- An unstable planetoid whose atmosphere is held together by a supermassive core, resulting in a stable accretion disk of massive islands and chunks of rock and metal 51- The planet is full of vast deserts on one side of the planet and a massive ocean of salt water on the other no fresh water exists. All creatures hardy enough to live on this planet kill anything not part of their species on sight. 52- Two connected ideas: -The planet was once alive; both the planet itself and all live living on it were a linked hive-like intelligence. Unfortunately, this intelligent met a terrible fate. The planet's life network is now either... ...a ghost: the planet appears translucent on a visual scan. Attempts to land a craft on it result in the craft passing through the planet, and the aura of undeath surrounding the planet causes severe damage to any living crew as the planet attempts to consume their life energy. ...or... ...a zombie: the planet's flora and fauna appear necrotized and crave flesh. The planet emits eerie signals into space, luring organic beings to approach it and be consumed. 53- Oh, I’ve got a good one! The planet is under the control of a lovecraft monster. It seems like a generic medieval world, but nothing in it is real, and the longer you stay on the planet, the longer it becomes obvious. Mountains may end up becoming more numerous out of nowhere, the townsfolk begin to look and talk the same, and freak accidents start becoming much more occurent 54- Spatial rifts whip across the planet surface like knives. Being hit with a rift edge will slice anything into pieces and displace the pieces as far as 200m away, though most displacements are only 5m or less. 55- The entire surface is an acidic quicksand type of soup. This is even riskier because the surface churns so violently that tidal waves upto 5km high move chaotically at upto 250kph around the globe. 56- The planet is very young and still in the accretion phase so that thousands of massive asteroids impact the surface on many days. The atmosphere is highly toxic, filled with heavy metals, and radioactive isotopes. 57- The planet is within the blast wave of a supernova. 58- This was a ring world built by an advanced civilization over a Millenia ago. It is very broken. Pieces of the ring grind each other into asteroids continuously. 59- A planet with a surface made of clay that excretes acidic substances that dissolve all living matter into more clay. 60- A planet with an odd magnetic field that has caused large plates of sharp metal to become suspended in air. This same magnetic field is responsible for rushing winds that cause the plates to smash together, shredding anything in their path with deafening metallic ringing 61- Something living within the core of the planet releases psionic energy that drives the inhabitants mad 62- Poisonous mist hangs in the air, infecting wounds created by the needle sharp spines that cover the surface of this planet. 63- A planetoid made of diamond or precious metals that is caught within an asteroid field, causing the surface to be pelted nonstop by large chunks of space debris 64- An ocean planet where the ocean is made up of sulphuric acid due to volcanic activity in the depths. The acid is not strong enough to immediately dissolve you, it will take at least 10 minutes to get through your skin. But once it is through your skin, you will not last long... The ocean is also at least 1 km deep everywhere. 65- No oxygen in the atmosphere. 66- A dry, dusty planet that exists mostly of quicksand on the surface, though there are some rare oasis-like areas with a bit of water and plant life to stabilize the soil. 67- Cyanide-rich atmosphere. 68- A planet where carbon is scarce and the inhabiting lifeforms (mostly bacteria but also fast-growing fungi-like lifeforms) have a taste for it. 69- A planet with high radiation due to nuclear wars from past civilizations. There is life left, though heavily mutated and mostly sick. 70- A planet with high seismic activity; severe earthquakes and volcanic activity are prominent. 71- A planet with high wind speeds. The wind will blow away a full-sized orc at it's strongest. There are a few caves, which offer shelter from the wind, though the howling is insanely loud due to the corrosion it has caused on the landscape over the centuries. Long exposure to the howling wind will damage your ears severely, causing them to bleed after an hour and a half. Further expose will result in permanent deafness. 72- Hydrogen chloride-rich atmosphere (on contact with water or bodily fluids it will create highly concentrated hydrochloric acid. Eyes, nose and mouth will melt away first, and the rest follows soon after. 73- • This planet is a sentient gaseous giant although it has no voice to speak it attempts to communicate with other life forms by delving into their memories and bringing into existence the form of someone they were most attatched to, this more often that not is someone that the life form has lost and therefore drives the majority of life forms insane ( roughly adapted from the book solaris) 74- • A planet harsh and cold , the surface of which entirely covered in ice. Its ice storms blow so cold they can freeze objects/ships/lifeforms in seconds , deep beneath within the core is warm enough to support life . However through lack of food its inhabitants have devoured one another leaving only a large sea serpent within devouring parts of it's own tail in order to survive. 75- • an Orb of black obsidian this world makes a pass through its suns great solar flare once every 100 years.... some how it manages not to burn up and is instead supercooled creating a world of Black glass. 76- • a massive crystal imprisons a great titan. It is long dead but fiercely defended by a race that believe it to be a sleeping god 77- • a violently reactive newly formed world.. its plates shift so violently that it is almost constantly quaking. Its surface is hot and borderline molten and geothermal activity causes a constant spray of molten lava and ash into the upper atmosphere that is beginning to cool and harden, as it begins to seperate into 2 smaller bodies It resembles a mushroom cloud. 78- A planet with released clouds of experimental mind altering drugs. Since many of these were failed combat stimulants most increase aggression to extreme levels. 79- The planet was previously involved in a rebellion, one that failed with the most horrific outcome as the planet's surface was bombarded with nuclear detonations. All life that remains is grown underground in a complex of tunnels beneath the irradiated surface. People are not born, but rather grown in vats in bulk as tithe to those who won as tribute. Those who come from this world are very likely to join the bulwark of the current regime's army, and die whilst being trained in the harshest conditions possible. Those who make it beyond this grueling training regiment go on to usually die in service to the ruling faction's army, as an insignificant cog in the unstoppable, unending hordes of flesh that the ruling regime throws at its enemies. 80- The planet was host to a telepathic transmitter experiment. Unfortunately, the power is turned up so high that it literally fries the brain of anyone within high orbit of the planet. 81- An ancient precursor race built a machine on the planet that makes their thoughts into reality. They were destroyed by nightmares (made into reality) created by negative thoughts and emotions. The machines still function and will likely continue to function for millions of years. Credit: 1956 film "Forbidden Planet" 82- The planet is very placid and peaceful, but with no sapient life on it. The planet is so rich in natural resources that a pound of wood burns like 10 pounds of pure coal and its native animals’ meat is so nutritious it actually improves health. However, the planet is inhabited by hibernating superpredators that ruthlessly hunt down any foreign life form attempting to harvest its natural resources. They are completely immune to all forms of conventional weaponry. 83- The planet appears normal and Earthlike, however, there is no land-based animal life. Above the water, only plants and fungus live. This is because the planets star, which is normally quiet, is actually variable and goes nova ~ every 100 years, sterilizing the surface. Plants and fungus that regrow from their roots simply replace the dead tissue on the surface, and aquatic life is generally fine, but any colony established here is on a clock from day one. 84- A planet that is very rich in pure sodium on the surface. The atmosphere contains no oxygen. There are a few caves with bacterial ecosystems that are very rich in oxygen. However, should the oxygen ever reach the surface and come into contact with the sodium, the slightest spark will set it off and explode. This will cause a chain reaction by exposing other caves with oxygen. There are a few large (thousands of square kilometers) craters on the surface indicating this has happened before. 85- A planet inhabited by an intelligent species that will capture any alien lifeform to examine, usually with fatal consequences. 86- A planet that has near-constant thunderstorms, leaving no space for life to sprout other than underground. Life has adapted and can actually use the electricity as an energy source, but for earth(-like) life, the electrical currents in air will be lethal after a while. 87- A huge planet with gravity 5 times as strong as on earth. Only small plants and animals can survive (and bacteria and fungi-like lifeforms of course) 88- An icy planet that is warming up and the ice has started to melt. Ancient bacteria in the ice disrupt the water's eco-system and cause many species to die out. This world isn't immediately deadly, but it is a dying one. 89- A planet inhabited by robots who hate biolife as it used to treat them badly and slay any biolife that lands on their planet. 90- A planet involved in a violent interplanetary-wide war. Not as deadly as some planets, but not a very safe place to be for very long as there are no neutral countries and all sides commit regular war crimes 91- A planet that over a very long period of time spiraled inwards towards it's sun. The life either died or fled in starships. One half of the planet is a tide locked sea of lava and the other half is freezing ice. 92- The planet had been used as an insane asylum for the galactic governments for some time. It was practically a lone moon without a planet, massive complex buildings were erected on its surface, composed of only archways, staircases, compact cells (of course cells did vary for species), and small hallways. Using advanced technologies, a form of biological stasis fluid, that did not need changing, was administered to the ill. Essientally, the fluid kept the patients vitals stable and would repair any self inflicted wound and, in addition, rendered them relatively sedated, yet allowed them to remain conscious as the same time. The fluid was administered by a pack that would be inserted into the back and was wirelessly hooked onto a mainframe that insured each patients pack cycle the proper chemicals. Unfortunately, due to a malfunction in the mainframe (that is still being investigated to this day), the sedative chemicals that were adminstered and cycled by the pack one day began to be filtered out of the blood stream and back into the pack. While the body stasis and regenrative functions remained stable, the patients then fell back into their own respective delusions and conditions. This incident caused the deaths of almost all staff at the facility (of which there were few), mainly due to patient voilence. Since then, the facility has been abandoned and the only use its seen to date has been by corrupt governments dumping political prisoners on the surface of the planet. Currently there is a reward for the where'abouts of several political figures on the planet. There is also a incredibly large reward for anyone party that is able to repair the mainframe, located in the center basement of the planet's complex. 93- The planet is actually a pocket dimension controlled by what a thirteen year old author is writing on her newest Wattpad story. She’s going for a mixture of atomic horror and romance, and while the writing isn’t great the monsters are certainly awful. Also, random NPCs are constantly falling in love with the party. About half of them are obviously based on vampires and werewolves. 94- On #10, there exists one city that is built right on the border of night and day, all on top of a high-tech lazy Susan that slowly turns the city, maintaining an artificial night/day cycle. Life is a consistent struggle to maintain the rotation. Players will be rewarded if they go on a series of highly dangerous expeditions into the night/day sides of the planet in search of raw materials. 95- A planet that was once largely populated, until a strange ooze was birthed or created somehow with the ability to ingest any living matter and grow in size as a result. Over time, the ooze grew and grew until it became the size of a mountain, eventually gobbling up every other living organism on the planet. The ooze eventually died after running out of any organic matter to sustain itself, and it’s gargantuan amorphous corpse surrounds the entire planet, creating extremely interesting and unique landscapes. 96- A dry desert world with massive weather systems. Sandstorms the size of small continents constantly sweep across the world. Despite this, life survives on the planet, riding out the storms in armored shells, burrowing beneath the sands, or in extensive cave systems. 97- A metallic planet with a liquid interior. A current regularly cycles across the surface of the planet, causing anything on it to experience major electrical damage. 98- A planter that has two distinct magnetic fields on its poles alternating between attracting and repulsing each other at random times. Anything on it runs the risk of being flung into outer space or dragged into the rubble of the surface. 99- The planet's atmosphere contains a hive mind virus that quickly assimilates any visitors. 100- A species of practically indestructible predators methodically sweeps across the surface from west to east, consuming or killing almost every living thing. It takes them thousands of years to cross the ocean beds, but they scour the terrestrial surfaces within weeks. 101- The planet is an interstellar disposal grounds for radiation-contaminated material. 102- The planet periodically phases through into a dimension where life cannot exist, killing everything on it. 103- Rumors of a rift into a universe of Quantum Fatality. It's like the universe of Quantum Immortality, where every possible version of you that survives... survives - but opposite. The rumors of this rift somewhere in space are actually the spookiest part. No one is looking for it. Any real solid leads that definitely confirm or deny its existence remain behind, waiting to be read and understood, but they're covered in dust. Apparently, anyone who gets close to even consider going to find if the rift is real or not... some version of them actually goes there... and the nature of Quantum Fatality snuffs that person out of existence and all living versions of them out of existence, back into the rest of the universe backwards and forwards throughout all time. Then, we never even know they existed. But it's just a rumor. Right? 104- Planet is covered in millions of constantly firing machine guns. 105- Planet is covered in desiccant sand. Liquid is constantly being absorbed from the air, dehydrating anyone and anything in the atmosphere. 106- Planet vibrates at its core at a rapid rate. Anything remotely fragile is shaken to pieces in a short time. 107- The planet is a “Rogue Planet”. Whether it’s star burned out or the planet escaped it’s orbit, it’s sun is now missing. The entire planet is frozen over. 108- Everything on the surface of the planet has been turned into a giant desert due to the passing of gigantic robotic worms seeking to consume all metal they can find. Even the mountains have been worn away. (Credit to the movie Vexille). 109- The planet is a prison-planet that forces its residents into an infinite gladiatorial free-for-all 110- • The planet is trapped in a forever war between two robot armies. Their creators have long since died off but the war machines will continue to fight in their name until everything not on their side is eradicated 111- • The entire global population has converted into worshipping an eldritch trans-dimensional horror and turned the planet into an elaborate temple/ritual ground. The stars are aligning allowing terrible things to enter our dimension and are helping the cultists open a light years wide hole in reality to let their dark master through. 112- • Every landmass on this planet is in fact the back shell of colossal mega fauna swimming on the surface of the planets shallow acid ocean 113- • A tropical planet with shallow seas that seems pleasant at first glance. On this planet is a singular 'ultimate lifeform' that causes life to flourish around it. When it dies, all life on the planet descends into a blood crazed killing frenzy attacking anything that lives. When there is one final living creature it rapidly evolves into an entirely new ultimate life form to bring life back to the dead planet. 114- An unknown intelligence has begun to take over the minds of the creatures on the planet. This hivemind seems virulent making many authorities to consider strict planetary quarantine or eradication. 115- A planet that a hyper advanced alien species attempted to teleport across multiples solar systems, however this catastrophically failed, and now all foreign matter immediately phases through the planet and is lost in its internal maw. It is nearly impossible to know about this planets side-effect without one observing it themselves which leads to many seeking refuge or adventure to being lost in its maw, as the aliens who caused the said side-effect are too ashamed to inform the public.
I have researched a lot on resin printing (I'm thinking about buying a resin printer). I've seen the safety measures for handling liquid resin, as well as the steps of the post-processing. However, there are a few questions that plague my head, that I can't find the answer to anywhere. My questions are: "The IPA I use to clean a print (of 3 to 5 cm), is it reusable?" "Do I dispose of it as hazardous waste?" "If not, how?". I'm new to 3d printing and I wanted to print miniatures for my tabletop games. As I said in the start of this post, I've done my research on resin printers (maintenance, safety, print handling), but wherever I search about "what to do with the IPA used to clean the print" I can't find the answer. For context on my worries with the disposing of the residues, I live in a small city with (as far as I know and have researched) no residue disposal and treatment centers nearby (closest is about 2 hours away).
I'm a chemist who legally works with illegal drug manufacturers on a daily basis. Ask me (almost) anything!
Without identifying where from, my country is very progressive on drugs. Personal use is mostly decriminalized, cannabis is regulated under the same laws as tobacco, harm reduction education is mandatory in all secondary schools, harm reduction methods are widely distributed, medically supervised safe consumption sites are widespread, however manufacturing "hard" drugs remains illegal. I work for an outreach project cosponsored by many government agencies here. Police service, ambulance service, fire service, health authority, poison/toxin/venom/drug research & information center, conservation & wildlands authorities, ministry of environmental health, etc. I'm a chemist with medical training who works for the project — our goal is to work with illegal drug manufacturers to reduce harm to them, the environment, and the population. This is done by education on lab safety, encouraging manufacturing methods that are safer to the public, ensuring proper disposal of environmentally hazardous waste, taking of samples for study, tracking manufacturing problems, etc. Ama
I've searched for answers to these questions everywhere and couldn't find any. Can anyone help a newbie out?
I have researched a lot on resin printing (I'm thinking about buying a resin printer). I've seen the safety measures for handling liquid resin, as well as the steps of the post-processing. However, there are a few questions that plague my head, that I can't find the answer to anywhere. My questions are: "The IPA I use to clean a print (of 3 to 5 cm), is it reusable?" "Do I dispose of it as hazardous waste?" "If not, how?". I'm new to 3d printing and I wanted to print miniatures for my tabletop games. As I said in the start of this post, I've done my research on resin printers (maintenance, safety, print handling), but wherever I search about "what to do with the IPA used to clean the print" I can't find the answer. For context on my worries with the disposing of the residues, I live in a small city with (as far as I know and have researched) no residue disposal and treatment centers nearby (closest is about 2 hours away).
Complete Information about Green Ship Recycling Process
There are many ship demolition cash buyers who encourage and support the demand is the vessel owner for the sale of the ships to the yard which compiles green ship recycling. https://preview.redd.it/dieufyjo9ag61.jpg?width=843&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e48d2adfae7f49dd50d37295172983c1b8e12e7c Green recycling is- · Disposal of hazardous materials namely- TBT, asbestos, PCB’s in an appropriate manner and by the skilled team. Always reliable and skilled cash buyers of the ship would found maintaining the site of several hectares for collecting, transporting, receiving, storing, disposing off by landfill or other necessitated treatments. · Maintenance of inventor of hazardous materials where all the harmful materials and their location of board is listed · Detailed documentation of the vessel dismantling process followed by the ship breaker to be accounted for each vessel There are many good reasons which have resulted in making the concept of green ship recycling widely popular and meaningful. The most relevant ones are here- · Isolate all the parts of the vessel that are dangerous and harmful to human as well as marine lives. · Conserve marine ecosystem by discarding the vessel breaking waste · Reusing the parts of the vessel that are crucial and can be re-used successfully while making new ones thus ensuring resource-saving · Helps the owner of the ship to be benefitted from the process of optimum use of the ship part. All the valuable parts of the vessels are reused inclusive of steel, aluminum, brass, silver, etc. Since the primary part of a vessel’s weight is in steel, the steel morsel from the ship is converted into rods and bars for various other uses. In addition to the metal which can be recycled, there are many toxic components in the vessel. All these dangerous substances include asbestos, mercury, lead and oil sludge, and so on. The inefficient ship breaking technique particularly those carried out on beaches than the dry-dock ship recycles facilities, allowing those toxic and dangerous waste to be disposed of precariously. Green ship recycling carries huge responsibility of saving our surroundings. The chief harmful material safely disposed off with the help of the vessel recycling process is asbestos. Any informational source about it will tell you that it’s been banned from use in the vessel for a long time. A ship in which it is used is to be recycled. Continuous asbestos exposure causes problems to marine life but also the people overseas on the ships. The green recycling centers with dry rock facilities capture harmful waste and dispose of it without letting flow in any other direction. Many labs are outfitted that the success rate has become 99% for harmful materials. In addition to surrounding safeguarding recycling center offers more jobs.
Sidebar Feature of the Week: The Western Environmental Law Center
The publiclands sidebar contains a wealth of knowledge and a collection of links to organizations involved with public lands conservation, education, and advocacy. We will be featuring a selection (in alphabetical order) and a short overview of these organizations and their work each week. 2/7/21 The Western Environmental Law Center The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation. Defending Wildlands The American West is defined by its natural heritage of wildlands, rivers, forests, and wildlife. Since our inception, we have used the law and the courts to preserve and restore these unique characteristics to ensure the West remains, as author Wallace Stegner wrote, “the geography of hope.” History In the early 1970s, with the Cuyahoga River aflame in downtown Cleveland and the toxic Love Canal unearthed in New York, Congress passed and President Nixon signed our bedrock environmental laws to protect clean water and air, to address the hazards of toxic substances and the industrial legacy of using our lands and waters as disposal sites for these poisons, to protect our most at risk plants and animals, and to require all federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their decisions. A unique, and critical provision of these laws was the right for everyday people to enforce them against violators. Out West in 1976, two environmental law professors at the University of Oregon, Mike Axline and John Bonine, added a clinical program to the school’s curriculum. They used these laws and the citizen suit provision to provide free legal representation to grassroots conservation organizations across the American West. By the early 1980s, the clinic was stopping Air Force bomber flights over ranches and wilderness areas, forcing disclosure of toxic chemicals in household products, and holding polluters accountable to the law. However, the clinic’s relationship with the University of Oregon was forever changed in 1987 when its law students, together with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, challenged Oregon timber sales to protect the endangered northern spotted owl. In response, the timber industry launched an unprecedented attack on the University of Oregon Law School’s academic freedom. Through industry allies in the Oregon legislature, a resolution was introduced to close down not just the environmental clinic, but the entire law school, if the clinic was not disbanded. In 1993, the environmental law clinic voluntarily moved off campus and became the Western Environmental Law Center. Our case over the fate of the endangered spotted owl and the Pacific Northwest’s ancient forests set a new precedent for environmental protection. By advocating for national forest management based on the unique needs of a bioregion rather than one-size-fits-all management, WELC sparked the creation of the groundbreaking Northwest Forest Plan – the first regional ecosystem-based management plan in the nation. Since 1993, WELC has expanded its offices across the West, first to New Mexico and then to Montana and Washington. We have helped bring Mexican wolves back to the Southwest, protected northern spotted owls and the Pacific Northwest’s ancient forests, shielded Canada lynx from trapping, and stopped the federal government from betraying the wolverine for political reasons. We have protected free-flowing rivers from the Rio Grande in New Mexico to the Rogue River in Oregon. We helped the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes fight against gold mines on their ancestral lands in Montana over repeated cyanide spills, and we helped numerous other communities fight against toxic discharges from factory farms and industrial polluters, including brokering a historic agreement with Los Alamos National Laboratory to address nuclear and other hazardous waste. We protected the 102,000-acre Valle Vidal in New Mexico from coalbed methane drilling forever, stopped polluting field burning in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and protected clean water from coal mine pollution in Montana. At WELC, we work every day to ensure those who would harm our public lands, our drinking water, wildlife, and communities are held accountable to U.S. law. Without watchdogs like ourselves and our partners, the laws meant to protect our values would be powerless. As we face climate change, our fight toward more resilient natural systems and communities is more important than ever. We have also grown during this time, both in size and in influence. We now play a key role in the future of the American West by identifying and advocating for forward-thinking environmental policies and to credibly counter our opposition’s efforts through targeted, vigilant legal advocacy. Our well-established litigation capacity provides us with a strong foundation and the credibility to leverage existing political dynamics in favor of conservation through a powerful combination of litigation, administrative-level legal advocacy, and policy advocacy. Since the Oregon legislature and timber industry’s attack on the University of Oregon’s environmental law clinic, the Western Environmental Law Center has provided pro bono legal services to hundreds of conservation groups and individuals. Connecting with them online and through various social media platforms.
Have 6 month+ old gasoline and 2 stroke mix. Need to properly dispose of. Car repair shops take it?
I am needing to properly dispose of 2-3 gallons of gasoline and 2 stroke oil mixed gasoline. Does anyone know of any car repair shops that will take it free? Veolia adams county hazardous waste recycle center has a $20 fee. And I believe i would have to give them both of my gasoline canisters. Trying to avoid that. Should i just shoot the gas with Stabil and try and use it anyways? Any better ideas?
The Racist Origins and Painful Legacy of Atlanta's Zoning
I'm going to start this post off with a few disclaimers:
A good amount of my information comes from The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein. I tried to find as many direct sources for the relevant topics brought up in the book as I could, but they weren't always readily availible. I highly encourage you to read the book itself if you want more details and his sources.
While I am going to try to use Atlanta-specific information as much as possible, there are some things that I can only provide evidence for in general, not to mention that I have to discuss this with the wider national historical context as well since Atlanta was but one part of a massive racist horror show.
I am by no means claiming to be an expert on this material. It's just what I have the most supporting information already at had for. Again, if you want to read more details from someone who spent much more time researching than I have, pick up a copy of The Color of Law.
I am by no means claiming that fixing zoning will be the end-all-be-all of segregation legacy, nor that it will singularly solve disparities for minority populations compared to white populations within the city. Undoing the sheer scale of bullshit put in place to codify segregation and racial suppression as it manifests today is an undertaking requiring effort on par with something like the Green New Deal (coincidentally, there can be quite a lot of overlap in with a GND, and that's why climate and social justice are so often packaged with various versions of a GND). Fixing the legacy of racist zoning's impacts is just one part to an incredibly complex system, but it's still one worthy of doing. Gotta start somewhere, right?
Alright, on to the main content... Buckleupkiddos,we'regoingforafuckinride!
Why the Fuck are you Talking About Zoning Right Now‽
The country is, to use an incredible amount of understatement, in a bit of a pickle right now. We're in the midst of a global pandemic that's surging, and resurging within our borders. We're reeling at a seemingly never ending parade of tragedy and failure of composure from the very police forces sworn to protect us. We're dealing with an ever escalating push back and response from a federal government that is attempting to label protesters as terrorists. We've had impeachments, assassinations of foreign political operatives, the emboldenment of out-and-loud racists, foreign bounties on our military, historic Supreme Court decisions, and record stock market crashes. We're staring down the barrel of a depression, and there's a looming climate catastrophe that's been burning in the background of all of this. So why, in the middle of all of this, am I bringing up zoning of all things? How could that possibly be relevant to any of this? Well... as it turns out... quite a bit. See, zoning is one of those core functions of government, generally on the local level but not always, that just kinda exists. It's a long, boring, complicated mess of legal code that just doesn't come up all that often in our every day discussions (unless you're a nerd like me who keeps trying to shove it into every conversation... ahem...). No matter how innocuous or intangible or boring zoning may feel, though, it actually has massive ramifications for how our build environment is shaped. That is literally its job, after all: codifying what is and isn't allowed to be built, where, and how. That build environment then has massive ramifications on a whole pile of social, economic, and environmental issues. A good zoning code balances public desires for safety, health, and environmental protections, while also helping to ensure various amenities are provided, ideally outweighing any downsides of development with benefits to the community at large. Unfortunately, most zoning systems fail at this balance, often focusing on the wrong components as perceived negatives when they're actually benefits, while codifying build requirements that actively make things worse for the communities around them. A bad zoning code can make housing more expensive, make it harder to meet climate and environmental goals, make the general population more sickly, impede the ability of persons to generate generational wealth, and horrendously damage the tax base, making it harder to fund public projects. As it turns out, most of these issues trace back to a few core ideas of the initial model zoning systems, and were originally put in as features of the codes. The intent at the time was mainly focused on creating a few specific negative outcomes, with many of the others having taken decades to fully manifest and be recognized. Yet, the original structure of the codes remain, bureaucratic momentum and an incomplete understanding of justice keeping them in place, dragging out the problems for years and years and years. So what were those features, and what specific negative outcomes were they trying to achieve?
Setting the Stage for Segregation
First, we have to step back, and take a bit of a historical run up to provide proper context. In 1877, Reconstruction ended. Federal troops, who had defeated the Confederacy, packed up and left the south after 12 years of postbellum occupation (14 if you include overlap years of occupation before the war's end). Reconstruction, though certainly not perfect, had been a time of relative empowerment for black Americans. Backed by federal troops, integration and political power was actually in reach. It wasn't 40-acres and a mule, but it was an incredible leap forward as the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were enforced in about as blunt a way as possible: at the muzzle of a rifle. That all came to a painful and tragic end with the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who had promised southern Democrats the end of occupation in exchange for electoral support. Almost immediately, black Americans suffered a bloody, violent resurgence of oppression, with segregation becoming standard practice, and enforced both at the hands of local law enforcement and mobs of white Americans. Worse yet, as Jim Crow laws and their efforts anchored themselves across the south, previously diverse and inclusive (relatively speaking) parts of the country began to follow suit. All over, towns and cities undertook the effort of removing, or isolating their black populations, using similar tactics learned from the southern states. Like a cancer, segregation spread far and wide, becoming more and more recognized and acceptable. By 1913, freshly elected president Woodrow Wilson and his cabinet approved the implementation of segregation in federal offices, marking about as drastic a change in federal priority as you could take over the course of three and a half decades. It is in this atmosphere of invigorated racist bullshit that zoning rises within the policy consciousness.
The Original Sin of Zoning
As a concept, zoning ordinances within the U.S. were rather new, with the 1908 Los Angeles municipal zoning ordinances being the first of their kind. The LA laws were a formalizing of existing nuisance laws, meant to create separations of land use and buffers between the harmful effects of industries and residences. Though specific business classifications (such as unnecessary prohibition of laundries, which were predominantly owned by Chinese immigrants at the time, in certain areas) did come with racial issues, they were quite tame by the standards of the time, as we're about to see. Prior to the rise of zoning as a popular government effort, it was fairly rare to see actual legal code dedicated towards segregation, instead focusing efforts on government-endorsed vigilantism and governments not enforcing equality laws already in place. This began to change, however. In 1910, a few years before the federal government would make official its office segregation, and two years after the LA zoning system was established, Baltimore became the first city in the nation, (as stated by the New York Times), to create an explicit law mandating the segregation of city areas. The city ordinance dictated that blacks could not buy homes on blocks where whites were the majority, and vice versa. The law was... horribly broken, and judges had to grapple with the complex, integrated reality of the city, trying to adjudicate who could and couldn't live where, or buy property where, creating an incredible mess of legal issues across the city. The practical problems with the law did not stop other cities from copying the effort, though. Invigorated by Baltimore's example, Birmingham, Dade County (Miami), Charleston, Dallas, Louisville, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Richmond, St. Louis, and others all made their own version of racial segregaition mandates within landuse. Amungst this list was, in fact, the City of Atlanta, whose ordinance virtually copied the Baltimore law, with the added provision that a person of one color occupying a house in a mixed block could object to one of another color moving next door. Unlike the initial LA zoning laws, the systems put in place following Baltimore's example were specifically racially focused, with more familiar zoning laws taking shape in the years to come. These initial racist laws would persist until the 1917 Supreme Court decision that such laws were unconstitutional in Buchanan v. Warley. However... the decision was based around the freedom of individuals to buy and sell property to whomever they wished, rather than a denunciation of segregation within law itself. Many cities simply ignored the Supreme Court ruling, and moved ahead with their segregationist laws, while others claimed that slight variations in the ordinances, such as the difference between block level and larger zoning styles, meant they didn't have to follow the ruling. The City of Atlanta was, once again, one of these cities. In The Atlanta Zone Plan: Report Outlining a Tentative Zone Plan for Atlanta (1922), written by Robert H. Whitten as a consultant for the the City Planning Commission, explicit residential districts were outlined by racial makeup, with R1 as "white residence district", R2 as "colored residence district", and R3 as "undetermined race district". It was nice enough to allow servants' quarters remain open to either race. The plan justifies this by saying:
the above race zoning is essential in the interest of the public peace, order and security and will promote the welfare and prosperity of both the white and colored race.
Additionally, Whitten defended his zoning plan in professional publications by saying that "[e]stablishing colored residence districts has removed one of the most potent causes of race conflict." This, he added, was "a sufficient justification for race zoning.... A reasonable segregation is normal, inevitable and desirable." Here is a map of the proposed zoning system within the then city limits. You can get an idea of just how limited housing areas for blacks were, just how much of the city was to be dedicated to single family housing compared to apartments, and how relegated commercial uses would be. Incidentally enough, this is where the City of Atlanta begins to see a zoning code similar to modern codes. We'll get to that in a moment. For now, note how closely this map matches some of the racial demographics of the city today, oh, and (just coincidentally I'm sure) how the largest 'Colored District' in the city was to be essentially bordered on three sides by industrial areas. Other zoning maps from the same time would go further with encroaching industrial zones, limiting colored areas, and limiting apartment areas. CanIjusttakeamomenttosayhowmuchIfuckinglovetheAtlantaHistoryCenteranditsarchives?Okay,movingon. At the same time that Atlanta was ignoring its constitutional duty to not segregate its people, the federal government was stepping into the zoning game. In 1921, then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover organized an Advisory Committee on Zoning to develop a manual explaining why every municipality should develop a zoning ordinance, with an eventual goal of developing model legislation that could be easily adopted. This committee had such members as Frederick Law Olmsted, who argued in 1918 that not only were certain housing types "coincident with racial divisions", and, since it was undesirable to "force the mingling of people who are not yet ready to mingle", great care should be take not to mix housing types, and Irving B. Hiett, who was the president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards, an organization who would produce a code of realtor ethics stating that "A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood... members of any race or nationality... detrimental to property values" just a few years later. By 1922, the committee had developed A Zoning Primer, which argued that zoning was required to preserve property values, and which was widely distributed across the country. The policies would push out wide and far across the nation, following the federal government's example.
Pretending as if Racist Plans Aren't
In 1924, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the City of Atlanta zoning code due to its racial components. Despite this, the underlying plan and map developed with segregation in mind, would act as the basis for future plans. Indeed, there are many overlaps with the 1922 plan, and even zoning designations today. Keep Whitten's and the Zoning Commission's mentalities concerning the importance of racial segregation when looking back through the rest of the initial Atlanta zoning proposal. It provides leading anecdotes (without apparent supporting evidence beyond some photographs that don't really seem to match the narrative) of the dangers of mixing small stores, and low-rise multi-family housing with lower densities, primarily focusing on the perceived loss of value of adjacent properties, while framing the persons who make such developments as greedy speculators only out for a quick buck (rather than look at the economic benefit to the store owner, the new access to the store that surrounding areas get, and the housing relief the apartment dwellers experience). Still without apparent evidence, the proposal makes sweeping, generalized statements about the need to preserve neighborhoods' character, and preserve property values. It proposes to do this by dividing the city into use, height, area, and race categories, with each mixing with the others to dictate specific allowances. The racial categories were removed, yet the remainder of the plan's suggestions would persist. Even in 1917 it was understood that density was a major component of affordability. Special City Plan Adviser for the City Plan Commission of Cleveland Ohio Robert H. Whitten's essay The Zoning of Residence Sections, where Olmsted argued the merits of preventing the mixing of people and their racially pre-dis-positioned housing preferences, outright states:
We want to distribute the population as much as practicable, but at the same time we do not wish to force people who for business or other reasons need to live close to the central business sections either to pay very high rents or to go to much less convenient locations. As a city reaches metropolitan size, the demand for housing space near the central area becomes so great that the only way to make that location available to any but the wealthy is to permit a more intensive utilization of the land. Were it not for the ability to pile one dwelling on top of another, rents would be prohibitive in these central locations for the great mass of the people.
Even while expounding on the virtues of low-density housing, Whitten takes effort to acknowledge the economic need for multi-family housing to maintain affordability. Yeah, it's done in a condescending way where he can only imagine a case where being adjacent to the central business district is a legitimate reason for housing density, but he at least still accepts it as reality. Yet, dwelling house districts, from which apartment houses would be excluded, were to include the larger portion of the area of Atlanta, and were to primarily be made up of the largest area class, requiring at least 5000 sqft per family of lot area. The code outright targets 2-3 story buildings with families living over a store (generally which they would operate) as being undesirable, and thus is explicitly designed to prevent such outcomes. All of these things drove up the per-house price, requiring a family to pay for a significant amount of land, as well as an individual house, in the majority of the city's residential area. In the maps I linked above, you can see just how few areas were allowed to have apartments compared to the wider single-family zones. The federal zoning primer includes similar sentiments, telling an anecdote of how an apartment house built next to a home would destroy values by becoming 'a giant airless hive, housing human beings like crowded bees', as well as lumping 'sporadic stores' in with 'factories or junk yards' as a contributing factor of blight within a residential neighborhood. It's important to note that none of these codes tried to make improvements to living conditions through legislation like building codes, which could have helped prevent the squalor conditions that were so readily associated with apartments, and which had been present in the U.S. since at least 1859, in Baltimore, choosing instead to essentially quarantine apartments to prevent their spread into single family areas. As I laid out above, these are all value judgements made by people who viewed the mixing of races as something to avoid, as something that itself would contribute to a loss of property values (rather than recognize that self-fulfilling white panic, was the actual source of value drop, and that the constrained black populations were willing to pay higher prices because there were so few homes they could even get into, actually raising prices), and even made racial connections to types of housing to keep separated. But, because of the insistence of the courts, their policies were forced to take on an air of race neutrality. Thus, explicit race-based zoning was stripped from the codes, and the far more familiar forms of space and use based zoning were established. Those forms just so happen to harshly restrict the kinds of housing openly accepted as being affordable to the masses, and, in particular, the demographics of people who were least economically able to choose elsewhere. As the federal zoning primer said: Zoning Is Legal This is not to say that exclusionary zoning was not without its legal challenges, of course. In the 1926 Supreme Court case of Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, the court upheld the constitutionality of exclusionary zoning, using as part of its opinion the argument that "very often the apartment house is a mere parasite", and that, if allowed to mix with single-family houses, "come very near to being nuisances". The case was brought to the Supreme Court as an appeal to a U.S. District Court of Ohio ruling against the constitutionality of exclusionary zoning, stating that "the blighting of property values and the congesting of the population, whenever the colored or certain foreign races invade a residential section, are so well known as to be within the judicial cognizance." Essentially, while the Supreme Court decided that exclusionary zoning was based on inherit issues with mixing building types (even though 1) the issues aren't inherit, and 2) the exclusion argument is based on a slippery slope fallacy), the District Court had (correctly) identified an underlying racial motivation for preventing mixing.
When the Pretending Becomes More Overt
Were all else equal, we might be able to ignore the initial racial components of exclusionary zoning, and merely call the resulting codes classist (the reality is that racism and classism were/are tightly intertwined, with each giving perceived justification to the other), but things weren't equal. The median household income for a black family in 1947 (the earliest year I could actually find data) was just 51% of a white household (it was only up to ~63% in 2018). Even though modern discussion around apartments tends to bemoan the 'luxury' branding, and how accurate it may or may not be, the hard reality is that living in an apartment is cheaper than buying a house, at least in the immediate. For lower income people, it's pretty much the only option. For poor, and thus disproportionately black, people, the primary need for housing affordability was in the form of apartment buildings and residential density, even if that was only desired as a stepping stone. But that's not what the zoning system provided. Overwhelmingly, the city's land was designated for single family homes. Large lots, and individual homes drive up the per-unit costs of housing, locking poorer people out of being able to buy into neighborhoods. Worse yet would be the zoning systems of suburban and smaller towns, which would eliminate the ability to build apartments all together, essentially locking lower income, and thus disproportionately black, persons from being able to relocate there at all. This lead to crowding in the limited apartments, and, since the building codes hadn't been adequately updated to actually prevent it, the very slum conditions used as a justification for preventing apartments in the first place became self-fulfilling. Of course, not all black people were so poor that they couldn't afford to buy a single-family home, and quite a few did look to leave the limited availability of apartments. They were not met well, and indeed, in the years following the installation of exclusionary zoning systems, the federal government would essentially codify black exclusion from single-family neighborhoods, with cities clinging to the federal policies as justification for blocking black and integrated housing. Property (particularly home) mortgages used to be very, very different than how we think of them today, which locked many people out of the ability to get them. High-interest rates, huge down-payments, interest-only payments, and short (5-7 year) payback periods. These terms kept middle and low class persons (of all races) from being able to afford to buy property. As part of the New Deal, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation was established. The loan system was restructured to be closer to the lower rates, lower down-payments, overall payment, and long-term periods we're more familiar with today. Additionally, many existing mortgages were bought and restructured to save property owners from foreclosure. In the process of this, though, HOLC wanted an inventory of risk across the nation, so it could manage these new loan terms without crippling itself financially. This is where the kinda okay policy stopped. The risk inventory was carried out by local real estate agencies, who had national ethics codes and local policies for their agents to explicitly consider race when evaluating risk. So much so that they were actually under direction to maintain community segregation when otherwise selling properties. The inventory took the form of color-coded maps, where red sections on the map represented high-risk (don't loan people money / bail them out here). Many, many of these red areas were based on racial prejudice, with even wealthy / middle class integrated or black communities being rated far worse than equivalent income white areas. Here is a database of maps across the U.S., overlaid against modern areas. Here's a fun game: compare the Redlining Map for Atlanta to the initial racial zoning map! No it's not a 1-1 match, but it gets awfully close, particularly if you start to include initially designated areas for apartment buildings. This entire mess was made even worse with the establishment of the Federal Housing Authority, which was intended to insure private bank loans to first-time home buyers. Even though the FHA had its own auditing system separate from the HOLC, it still had direct segregation and whites-only policies. Additionally the FHA very specifically did not insure mortgages within urban centers. This meant that both HOLC and FHA services were denied to nearly the same areas: black or integrated neighborhoods, most often in urban centers. The FHA justified its racial rules by claiming that black people ruined property values. This was actually backwards, as the limited options available to black people meant that black and integrated properties were in high demand, and thus could be sold at a much higher price. What did happen, though, was 'block-busting'. So, because the FHA (and other organizations) continuously sold the idea that black people ruined property values, as well as the base-level racism, this left white neighborhoods vulnerable to manipulation. Speculators would buy up properties in blocks on the border of black / integrated and white areas, and then rent / sell them to black people. These speculators would also hire black people to walk around white neighborhoods asking about home sales, and looking like they lived there. Then the speculators would go around warning white property owners that their housing values would tank with all the black people moving in, and make stupidly low offers, buying out white properties well below the actual value (this is where the FHA was getting its data). Then the speculators would turn around and, because there were so few other options, sell the same properties above their actual value to black people at bad rates. This drove up costs for black people who otherwise just wanted a home, and the high prices contributed to perpetuating poverty and again creating self-fulfilling slum conditions. Many cities, private lenders, and other government agencies (like Veterans Affairs) anchored their lending and development approval processes on the FHA backing of home loans, which meant that blacks were barred from even the opportunity to really leave parts of the city within which they lived. It's worth reiterating that the HOLC and FHA policies were targeted directly at owning private homes, working off of a national policy that private homes were less communist than apartments. No, I'm not kidding. The U.S. Department of Labor distributed pamphlets entitled We Own Our Own Home to schoolchildren stating that it was a "patriotic duty" to cease renting, and to buy a house. Millions of posters were printed, and hung in factories and other businesses, while newspaper ads were run throughout the country. This national housing direction propped up single-family residences, and the infrastructure to support them, while leaving pretty much everything else to languish. Then there were the racial covenants, where individual properties were made unavailable to black people by deed restrictions, and which were often implimented on neighborhood scales. Then there was the New-Deal, where the Civilian Conservation Corps abided by local segregation policies for its camps and worker housing, further entrenching local segregation. Then there was the issue of cities targeting black and low-income areas overwhelmingly with zoning variances for industry and toxic waste disposal sites, exposing those persons to much higher quantities of toxins and pollutants. Then there was public housing which eliminated mixed-income tenants, was often explicitly segregated, often resisted adding housing for black people, and, when they did add housing open to blacks, located overwhelmingly in already black and poor neighborhoods, effectively concentrating poverty and increasing segregation. Then there were Interstate Highways, which were explicitly used for 'slum clearing' in many cities (including defining slum based on racial makeup rather than socioeconomic status of the persons living there), which were massive transportation subsidies to the very same segregated low-density suburbs already built with federal loan backing while public transportation languished, and which were actually used as physical barriers between parts of the city. Frankly, the list kinda just keeps going, and so I'm not going to try and fit it all. Seriously, go read the Color of Law for more explicit details. My main point with all of these is that, when you combine the initial versions of the zoning codes, the opinions of the people who made them, and the wider reactions and policies that came after the codes proved not to 100% segregate black people from white people, it becomes clear that a major component of the zoning system was established not actually to prevent health or value issues, but rather to maintain the separation of races.
That was a lot of words...
Right, so here's the summary:
After a decade of relative progress, the federal government abandons Reconstruction
Almost immediately, communities, including previously inclusive ones, begin to force their black populations out in a renewed effort of segregation
At first this is done outside of the law, but eventually cities get the idea to literally codify segregation through ordinances
That codified segregation was struck down in the Supreme Court, so cities are forced to find a proxy method of enforcing segregation
Cities used the separating of mixed-use developments and multi-family apartment buildings to create racial segregation through the proxy of economic segregation
When this doesn't work 100%, the federal government established home mortgage support systems that directly excluded black people, preventing them from buying into single-family neighborhoods even if they could afford it
There was a lot of other shit that happened to basically show that zoning was not the unbiased system it was pretending to be
Persistence of bad policy
Even though many of the explicitly racist policies have been removed or overturned, and what progress there has been in raising the wealth of black persons has helped with some racial mixing, it's clear that the proxy methods for discrimination persist to this day, with visible segregaition outcomes. Even when we do see integration, it is often in the form of wealthy white people moving into the limited new developments allowed in previously majority black areas (AKA 'Gentrification'). Today, Atlanta is still overwhelmingly zoned for low-density, single-family residential, even if some of those zones allow up to Accessory Dwelling Units (such density, much urban). Lot sizes in much of the city are still mandated to be quite large, and height planes still overly limit the number of stories buildings can be. What apartment buildings are allowed are constrained by cumbersome parking requirements (both codified and required by private lenders), and property setbacks. Mixed uses are often restrained on individual properties, requiring a specific zoning designation to be allowed. Even the city's plan for handling future growth still relegates nearly 75% of the area to relatively low-density housing as 'conservation' areas. Metro-wide, not nearly as many homes are being built as were pre-recession. While home prices are increasing back to pre-recessionary levels, housing inventory in metro Atlanta is constrained – partially due to a lag in residential construction. Prior to the recession, it was not uncommon for residential building permits to exceed 5,000 per month (in some cases, reaching over 7,000). After May 2007, the region experienced a steep decline in residential building permits, which persisted into early 2012, when the region began seeing modest increases. Though residential permits have trended upward since 2012, they have yet to reach pre-recessional levels, hovering instead between 2,000 and 3,000 permits per month. Because of this, all counties in metro Atlanta are experiencing the a decline in housing inventory. One of the main summary points of that report was: "Home prices rising significantly – faster than wages – due in large part to dwindling supply"ARC Regional Snapshot: Affordable Housing While the metro itself has been pretty easy to build new housing within (atleast from 2000 to 2015) compared to other metros, the parts of the city and close-in suburbs tend to be the hardest within which to add new supplly (of the 10 hardest zipcodes to build, the top 3 were partially in the city, and another three were in or partly in the city). Indeed, inflation-adjusted housing prices are rising quite quickly in the Atlanta Metro, even including months during this pandemic. Prices are looking to pass pre-2008 peak in 2023ish. Only, this time, vacancy rates for both renters and homeowners have been nearly at all-time lows for the metro (Source: Census Bureau). Many of the most intense price increases happening within the core city. At the same time, affordable housing initiatives are proving to be far too few to handle the rising costs, with recent 'Inclusionary Zoning' rules, as well as the wider public housing program failing to close the need. We're talking programs considering themselves successful at a few thousand units, when the demand for affordable housing (let alone total housing) is in the hundreds of thousands. The simple reality is that the racism of our past is leading to an over-all affordability crisis today. While, as usual, the hardest hit are African Americans, this affordability crisis has far reaching impacts across the demographic spectrum, including poor whites, and, particularly, poor Latino populations as well, locking out a wide variety of people who would otherwise want to live in the kinds of dense, walkable, urban areas the City of Atlanta uniquely offers within the metro. Not only that, but the very types of low-density developments so widely codified across the city and nation do not generate enough economic activity to actually pay for the infrastructure needed to support them, propped up by piles of hidden subsidies, all resulting in cities being effectively bankrupt. (Here's another real-world example) Even some of the most 'wealthy' of towns are having to seriously reconsider their historic development patterns to close out financial gaps. In Atlanta, this leads to things like a massive backlog of maintenance issues that even recent bonds and tax increases can't fully handle. Again, policies of a racist past are hurting everyone today. Undoing those policies, and transitioning back to tried-and-true development styles would greatly help fix financial issues. Additionally, as we work to overcome challenges with climate as a whole, we need to be seriously looking at our build environments, and just how much low-density development contributes to emissions compared to higher-density parts of the metro, and even the city itself. At the same time, moving away from cars would help reduce respiratory issues for poor and minority persons who are disproportionately affected by road-pollution, and generally moving to cleaner industries while cleaning up legacy pollution sites can help undo the years of inequality through industrial exposure..
Okay, so what do we do?
We need to have a hard discussion about zoning policies: their origins, their purposes, and their effects. We need to be prepared to recognize when policies were built on hate, and where they have lead to harm, just as much as we need to be ready to recognize that not every aspect of the zoning system is bad. We need to be willing to change, and be proactive about fixing the failings of previous generations. Ideally for the net benefit of all of us. As part of this discussion, though, we are going to have to really, truly consider what 'character' of this city are valuable. What are tangible goals, what are the potential negative outcomes, and what can be done to mitigate those outcomes, ideally while actually adding to the 'character' of the city. Again, we needs to be willing to change here. Not everything wrapped under the broad umbrella of 'character' is actually worth keeping, particularly given how I could probably copy and paste some of the 'neighborhood character' arguments from the initial racial zoning codes into places like NextDoor or Facebook or even here on Reddit without anyone suspecting they are nearly 100 years old.
As more people arrive in our city/county, there is more trash. Is our water and air staying clean as we pile it up? Does Recycling make sense? Join me tomorrow, Monday, 10-26 from 5-6 for a virtual town hall about trash mountains, recycling, hazardous waste removal and waste-to-energy. The virtual meeting is streamed live vía the Hsv City FB and the Hsv City website. Hsv City Council appoints the Board Members to the Solid Waste Disposal Authority. Let’s find out how and if they are staying ahead of environment concerns. https://www.huntsvilleal.gov/government/media-centehsvtv/ Or https://m.facebook.com/huntsvillecity
The opening of the biggest most advanced technological port in the Arabian Sea and Indian ocean, said to compete with the likes of Dubai and Mumbai.
Our Values
The spirit of The Port of Duqm is reflected through our core values F.I.R.S.T. Our values serve as guiding principles for the organization, driving policy and growth, provide direction to our people and is the cornerstone of the way we do business. Flexible Innovative Relationship & Client focused Sustainable Trusted
Port Authority
Situated on the southeastern seaboard of the Sultanate of Oman, overlooking the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean beyond, Port of Duqm is fast becoming an important reality of the Middle East region’s rapidly transforming maritime landscape. With its deep draft, lengthy quay walls, and expansive basin, Port of Duqm has the trappings of a world-class, multipurpose commercial gateway. And as the principal anchor of a huge Special Economic Zone envisioned at Duqm, it also has the potential to develop into one of the Middle East’s largest ports over the long term. At the heart of Port of Duqm’s appeal is its strategic geopolitical location, far removed from Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Gulf. It is this advantageous location that the Omani government seeks to leverage as it sets out to position Duqm as a safe, stable and business-friendly destination for industrial and economic investment. Indeed, the Sultanate of Oman – and the Port of Duqm in particular – stand to reap the benefits of the country’s international reputation as an oasis of tranquility and standard-bearer of regional peace and reconciliation. Underscoring Port of Duqm’s strategic importance is its planned development into an integrated, multimodal logistics hub, encompassing the maritime, road, air and rail modes of transportation. An airport is under construction at Duqm, while a proposed rail-based freight and passenger transportation network, will eventually link this industrial port city with the national rail system. Utilities and services are also modern, effectively providing investors with an unrivaled setting to do business. Free-trade agreements (FTAs) with the United States and Singapore, as well as its hospitality and trade minded culture, add to Oman’s investment appeal.
Port Terminals
The Port of Duqm, as a multipurpose Port, accommodates a wide range of commercial cargo handling, including • Dry bulk cargo • Liquid bulk cargo • General cargo • Project cargo • Bagged cargo • Containerized cargo • Automotive cargo (RORO) The Port of Duqm, as a Terminal Operator, manages the Multipurpose, Dry Bulk and Navy Terminal by offering a diverse range of services including • Stevedoring • Shore handling • Storage and stock keeping • Stockpiling • Stuffing and destuffing of containers • Management of reefer containers Phase 1: The Port of Duqm currently operates from a 2.2-kilometer-long commercial quay, enjoying a guaranteed 18 meters deep draft alongside and 19 meters along the approach channel. At present, the commercial quay is operating in a pre-development stage and has the following terminals: 1) Dry Bulk Terminal 2) Navy Terminal 3) Multipurpose Terminal, which includes container operations Once the phase 1 construction works are finished, expected before end of 2020, a RORO terminal and a fully-fledged container terminal are expected to start soon after. 1)Dry Bulk Terminal: The Port of Duqm has dedicated an area of approximately 10 hectares, over 300 meters of length at its commercial quay, for the Dry Bulk Terminal operations, which primarily focuses on the exports of industrial minerals such as limestone and dolomite and import of industrial salt and oil and gas related dry bulk cargoes. The Sultanate of Oman has vast deposits of metallic and non-metallic minerals. Previous surface exploration work and geological mapping have confirmed huge quantities of mineral deposits located in the wider vicinity of the port. Minerals such as limestone, dolomite, silica sand, shale, kaolin, laterite, basalt, solar salt and ornamental stone deposits have been discovered. In the immediate vicinity of the port, mines of high-quality limestone and dolomite have started their operations, which are targeting both local industries and export markets. Current Capacity: The Port of Duqm started the dry bulk terminal operations in February 2016 and gradually has built up volumes ever since. Currently several parcels of dolomite and limestone are being shipped on a monthly basis to overseas markets like India and Qatar. In terms of equipment at the Port of Duqm, ships are loaded using Ship’s Gear, however, the Terminal can also assist with on shore crane capacity as following: Terminal Shore Cranes2 x 125 MT (SWL)Terminal Grabs2 x 12 CBM The current terminal capacity is about 5 Million tonnes per year and the port is equipped with Terminal wheel loaders to facilitate cargo receiving, stockpiling and loading operations. Future Plans: • Depending on the future market developments, the Dry Bulk Terminal has plans to acquire additional loading equipment to add flexibility, increase loading capacity and efficiency of the dry bulk operations • Expansion of yard and berth capacity in the ‘phase 2’ development area of the Port. • Accommodation of new dry bulk cargo flows responding to import, export and transshipment opportunities. 2)Navy Terminal: The Port of Duqm has dedicated an area of approximately 10 hectares, over 300 meters for the Navy Terminal, which offers a wide range of services. The Port of Duqm acting as a single focal point for all Navy shipboard support services while offering innovative, flexible logistical services to all ships that docks in port. The services offered include • 24/7, 365 days of operational attendance • Berthing and anchorage arrangements • Pilotage towage • Line handling arrangements • Fresh and potable water supply • Gangways supply • Internet (Wi-Fi Zone) • Garbage removal/disposal • Special refuses removal/disposal • Hazardous and medical waste disposal • Sewage removal/disposal • Oily waste removal/disposal • Repairs and inspection • Diving and underwater survey • Crew medical assistance • Bunkering arrangements • Material handling equipment • Liberty services • Camp setup and management infrastructural construction • Containerized units refrigerated conex boxes • Shelters • Office and other furniture • Washdown services • Rental of generator units 3)Container Terminal: The Port of Duqm has the clear ambition to become a major hub for handling containers, making full utilization of its major assets, such as its prime location towards inland and overseas markets, the 18 meters guaranteed draft, the expansive land and quay length availability and its current and future intermodal capabilities to reach local, regional and international markets in the most cost-efficient way. Currently the container operations are carried out at the multipurpose terminal area. The loading and unloading operations are carried out by the two mobile harbor cranes which have a joint capacity of CA 30 moves per hour. Apart from the cranes, the port is equipped with the following, • Manual container spreader • Automatic container spreader • Spreader bridge • Reach stackers The Port of Duqm is already linked to other major seaports in the region, including Salalah and Sohar in Oman and Jebel Ali in UAE, via a multipurpose feeder service (Oman Express Service) which is operated by the Oman Shipping Company. This service currently operates on a weekly basis. This weekly feeder service allows industries in the wider Duqm area to import/export containers on a regular basis. Major shipping lines, such as Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, Hapag Llyod and HMM have already registered Duqm as the end destination and can move all containerized cargo to and from Duqm, utilizing Oman Shipping’s Express service regionally and globally. As soon as the commercial quay is fully commissioned, expected before end of 2020, fully fledged container operations are expected to start from a dedicated 34ha yard and 1130m quay , increasing the capacity of the terminal from the current 200,000 TEU towards 1.7 Million TEU. Further expansions will be planned for afterwards in the ‘phase 2’ port area if and when the market requires it. The procurement of the required terminal equipment, such as Quay Gantry Cranes, Terminal Tractors and Rubber Tired Gantry cranes are currently at a tendering stage, details will be updated in due course. 4)Multipurpose Terminal: The Port of Duqm has built up a vast experience in the handling of project and breakbulk cargo at its multipurpose terminal ever since the start of its operations in 2020, and has built up a strong brand as a reliable partner accordingly. Backed up by the Port of Antwerp expertise, the Port of Duqm Handling Services are based on the core principles of material handling techniques and equipment. The port's excellent accessibility, its state-of-the-art infrastructure, value-added activities and highly skilled workforce ensures all types of project and breakbulk cargo at the Port of Duqm is handled reliably and carefully. The port ensures tailor-made handling solutions depending on customer’s requirements and a quick turnaround time. Following type of cargoes are being handled at the multipurpose terminal: •Steel Plates: •OCTG (Oil Country Tubular Goods) and Line Pipes: OCTG pipes and line pipes are handled with great care using innovative technologies and equipment. Regular training courses are conducted to the entire operational team in the handling of pipes resulting in continuous safe handling, no damage and no accidents, lower costs and no downtime. •Over dimensional & Heavy Lift Project Cargo: The Port of Duqm has built up a very strong expertise in the handling of over dimensional cargo & heavy lifts. Due to the fact that the Port nor its hinterland is imposing any restriction in the handling and transporting of such demanding cargo, the Port of Duqm has become the center of excellence for heavy lift operations in the Sultanate. •Containers: The Port of Duqm started container operations in 2016, and utilizes its multipurpose terminal yard and equipment (2 mobile harbor cranes and reach stackers) for all container handling in this early stage of operations. This will be the situation till fully fledged terminal operations start when the entire commercial quay will be commissioned, expected before end of 2030. Our terminal quay is capable of handling 45 tonnes/sqm as ground bearing pressure, which is sufficient to handle heavy cargoes. Terminal OperatorThe Port of Duqm Company SAOGStevedore Working HoursFirst Shift – From 0600 hours to 1800 hours Second Shift – From 1800 hours to 0600 hoursStevedore Overtime HoursFriday - From 0001 hours to 2359 hours Public holidays - from 0001 hours to 2359 hoursPort working Hours24 hours / 7 days a weekType and number of cranes (Gantries + Shore cranes)2 Gottwald 125 tonne mobile harbor cranes (capable of lifting 250 tonne in dual hoist)Forklift1 X 3 MT | 1 X 5 MT | 1 X 11 MT | 2 X 15 MT | 1 X 25 MTLink belt Cranes1 X 30 MTReach Stackers3 X 45 MTWheel Loader5 NumbersOpen yard area for general cargo / project cargo20 hectaresLogistics Land (outside port area)Available for lease – long terms / short term 5)Liquid Bulk Terminal The first phase of the liquid bulk terminal was handed over to the Port of Duqm by the end of 2019. Immediately adding 70ha of reclaimed land and 7 new berths for the handling of liquid bulk products, the Port of Duqm is planning to become the new liquid bulk hub in the Middle East region. One of the first important tenants will be the Duqm Refinery, which is expected to greatly contribute to Duqm’s attraction for petroleum and petrochemical production and trade flows. The Port of Duqm has ample land available for meeting any inquiry from investors for the production or storage of liquid bulk products. An expansion phase, adding about 40ha more land, will be commissioned by the end of 2030. Additional berths will be added when needed.
Industrial Land
Duqm Industrial Land Company (DILC), a subsidiary of Port of Duqm Company SAOC (PODC), has been mandated with the development of industrial land in Duqm. Duqm Industrial Land Company (DILC) has been granted various usufruct areas covering 2000 hectares (ha) in total, comprising of 500ha of land suitable for heavy industries, 500ha for medium-to-heavy industries and 1000ha land for petrochemicals. At present, DILC is developing its first land parcel of 250ha area, leasing plots of land to medium-heavy industry. The area is situated 15kms from the Port of Duqm, in the direct vicinity of the Duqm Refinery project, currently under construction.
Logistics Lands
The total Logistics land spans over 1,500 hectares and is situated at close proximity to the port, ideally suited for export and import activities of logistics and light industrial businesses. This includes the following:
Laydown areas
Transport activities
General warehousing
Stock keeping activities
Container Freight Stations
Repacking units
Parking areas
Container yards
Assembling facilities
In the first phase, 65 hectares of land was levelled which is nearly fully leased out, with only few plots remaining. Port of Duqm is in the process of levelling a further 100 hectares of land, which will be available for rent in the near future. This port will propel Oman into the 2040 vision
Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in ma. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!
Disposing of GPU/CPU water blocks, tubing, coolant
I have a few questions regarding the disposal of EK products at the end of their lifecycle (e.g. no longer usable, broken, used up) and a product claim that'd if you could answecomment on would help me to better understand how to deal with your products and how I'll dispose of them in some future when they may no longer be able to serve their purpose. I'm not trying to bait you into an argument or trick questions.
Coolants - EK Cryofuel premixes and concentrates. From some online-searches and reading postings, it seems that a lot of people have no exact idea about what to do with "used up" coolant and just pour it down the drain/sink/toilet or as one user suggested "in the bushes". As the product page itself and the bottles only contain boilerplate text regarding disposal "in accordance with national regulation", I've looked at the safety data sheet which is also linked the product page. The website of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) lists the chemical from the Cryofuel safety sheet here: https://echa.europa.eu/substance-information/-/substanceinfo/100.039.334
It appears to me, that ek cryofuel can be considered to be handled in pretty much the same way as break fluid or automotive coolant for disposal, which for about every EU country should mean that any amounts of the fluid are to be disposed by taking it to hazardous waste collection points. Can you comment on that method of disposal being the correct way or recommend something else? This question is also to clear things up around "just pour it down the toilet".
For EK-DuraClear soft tubing, which states "Material: PVC" on its product page, the claim "Environmentally responsible, safe and non-toxic product" is listed as a feature. What is backing up the feature claim and in what sense it the PVC used in the product "environmentally responsible, safe and non-toxic"? Could you clarify the source for this or whether this is to be seen as a summary regarding best-effort and "Other Specifications" (DEHP Free, Phthalate Free, California’s Prop 65 compliant, FDA Approved ingredients, ROHS Compliant PVC)?
The content at https://www.ekwb.com/shop/environment mentions that WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) is to be disposed of through e.g. collection centres. Do EK GPU/CPU blocks without LEDs also qualify as WEEE and should be taken to the same center, or do you have different advice for disposal and/or recycling of e.g. damaged out-of-warranty/EoL water blocks?
Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in ma. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!
As this is a language of tastes and strands of DNA analog names cannot be written phonetically and are instead replaced with a human name or Earth analog in [brackets]. Span: The diameter of an average [Gaian] = 0.94mm, Kilospan = 0.94m. Beat: The amount of time takes an average [Gaian] to move their cilia = 0.064s, kilobeat = 1min 4s Work Cycle: 10 kilobeats. Equivalent to around 15 hours on their time scale Day: Day length on [Gaia] = 28h 16min. Equivalent to around 3 months on their time scale. Year: Year length on [Gaia] = 224.4 days = 264.3 Earth days. [First] [Previous] —————————————————————— [Faythe] was positively sick with excitement. She had hit a wall on the rescue mission front, [Alice] had been adamant about not revealing themselves further by sending a rescue team, and launching a mission in secret would have required sabotaging half of the station. Even if she thought she could get all the comms and scanners down she wasn’t crazy enough to actually try it. Widespread sabotage or ship hijacking was a dangerous proposition, and she doubted [Walter] and the others would want her to put the station in jeopardy for them. After 3 solid tenth days of appeals, requests, and contemplating sneaking off while scouting, she had to admit a rescue mission wasn’t going to happen. But that doesn’t matter now! She thought giddily as she rushed to the docks. They are still alive, and making contact!. Her hope was warring with caution and hope was currently winning. Like most of the station she had followed the messages from the Humans with rapt attention. She recognized [Eve]’s signaling right away and found it a bit funny she had been the main speaker, [Faythe] had always pegged her as the [quiet] sort. [Faythe] had attempted to remain cautiously optimistic as she read the debate, wary of the creatures playing some terrible trick, but frankly she was past caring. Her hope that her friend was still alive had been fading by the cycle, and now they were supposedly about to be picked up. There was no way in hell she was going to miss that. Thank the depths [Grace] let us be the ones to go get them. I would be gnawing on the walls if I had to wait around and let some other team be the first to greet them again. She thought amusedly, wondering how the reunion was going to go. The “painful testing” [Eve] had briefly mentioned was concerning. She began wondering what kinds of terrible things someone might do while experimenting on supposedly subsentient drones and winced. Sometimes an active imagination is a bit of a curse. She thought as her mind was filled with scenes of detached and methodical disembowelment. She was so caught up in her thoughts in fact that she didn’t notice the harpoon that flashed out behind her. —————————————————————— [Sybil] [grinned] as she boarded the hastily readying recovery ship. She always like being a [Hephaestus]., being able to effortlessly push through crowds never got old, though annoyingly enough it seemed she would have to keep that to a minimum if she wanted to avoid notice, apparently it was out of character for her to be that rude. How boring. She managed to get abord the ship with no questions raised and made some small talk with a few of the ship crew she knew while she waited impatiently for that blasted representative to arrive. I hope she doesn’t pull the translators off into to a private meeting the moment we pick them up. She thought worriedly. She hoped to get at least one of them alone first, and had a somewhat believable reason to do so. She had been openly expressing concerned for her dear missing friend for tenthdays after all. A few beats later and representative [Grace] finally arrived. The ship silently slipped free from its birth and flicked up and out of hanger into the lunar surface above. It hung there for a moment before the lunar dust below the ship briefly rippled as the stations great grav units bent the space around it, and in an instant they were elsewhere. Flicking back into existence 28 thousand kilometers above Earth, the ship did not bother making orbit, it simply fell towards the night shrouded continent below, heading towards the outskirts of a vibrant patch of light. As the ship sped downwards [Sybil] settled in for a few cycles of waiting, running over her plans. The basics of [Mallory]’s plan is somewhat sound, but there are some holes that need patching She grumbled. They were tortured and the humans attempted to mindhack them into being saboteurs and they pretend it worked on them so they can escape. Simple enough. People might ask why they didn’t try and say any of this in their message though. This could be explained by the Humans having a better grasp of Standard Gaian then they let on. I could say they learned enough Gaian and Solarian that they planned out most of the things in those messages, including the supposedly stealthily side comments that [Eve] had added in Solarian, all to make it seem like the crew were being genuine and not just reading off a script, but really the Humans were following every word they said and would quickly notice if they went off script or tried to slip something behind their backs by sending in an language they didn’t know. The crew didn’t bother risking that since they were trying to play along and pretend they had been fully brainwashed, since they knew the humans were planning on letting them go back to the fleet if they thought their program was working. Thus, they played along, following their script, not letting anything slip until they get safely back onto this ship and out of the humans clutches. Only then do they tell everyone what really happened. If I don’t manage to edit the memories on all of them, that could be explained as the brainwashing being successful on some of them. A suboptimal result, as it would place significant scrutiny on the psyche of the supposedly mindhacked crew, and I would have to justify the humans having somewhat effective mindhacking techniques. However it might still sow enough confusion and outrage to be effective, and by the time they are studied close enough that the story might unravel we will hopefully be long gone…. Yes, that could work. —————————————————————— [Walter] strained his eyes peering skyward as the beats crawled by. He had asked the humans when the ship was arriving but they had said he would know more about that then they would. He grumbled at that and spent some time calculating the fastest time he expected a ship could be scrambled to collect them. If they jumped in right overhead and had a powered decent downwards it would probably take around 80 kilobeats for them to get here. The trip out to this field took around a quarter of that so they should be arriving in another 60 kilobeats or so. He thought tiredly. He sighed and settled in for 6 cycles of waiting. The break did give him time to finish up some more of his signal pathway repairs and other projects but that was a minor consolation. The comms were mostly silent, as eventually the mix of tension and boredom sapped most of the energy of the group. The lull was broken near the end of the sixth cycle when [Eve] spotted a faint point of light in the sky that was rapidly growing brighter. “Look! That’s them!” The group staggered to their feet and twisted their heads to point their eyes skyward. [Frank] [laughed] when he spotted it “Yeah that seems to be them all right, they must be coming in hot. I guess they aren’t bothering with stealth for this.” The point of light grew to become a bright red star in the sky above them, before suddenly not being in the sky at all. With a thunderous crack a 300 span tall ship appeared before them, going from hypersonic flight to a dead stop in moments. Its hull still glowed a dull cherry red from the heat of its reentry. “Going with shock and awe I guess.” [Walter] sent wryly. Normally seeing a skyscraper sized structure floating in midair was awe inspiring enough, however he imagined it’s scale was less effective on their current audience. The ship was barely larger than one of the creatures’ heads. Speed on the other hand…well, to the humans it must have looked like the ship appeared from nowhere. “Ha yeah, that must have looked even more crazy to them…not that they saw it though, they are still looking at the sky. Oh! They are beginning to flinch now. Geez. That pilot is wasted on this crowd.” [Frank] sent mirthfully as the giants around them reacted with comical slowness. “Oh wow, look at that one, it launched itself into the air! It’s going higher than the ship!” [Eve] [laughed] as one of the white robed figures belatedly hurled itself away from the loud noise. The human guards appeared significantly less amused, as several of them trained weapons on the ship. “Hmm, maybe that was a bit to provocative.” [Walter] said the humor draining from his signal. The team watched anxiously as the giants continued to stare daggers at the slowly cooling ship hovering above the grass a few kilospan in front of them. “Sorry that surprised you, that was just a sonic boom from a rapid decent.” [Walter] slowly spoke, trying to calm the situation. “That was a standard landing for this type of mission.” He added, lying through his gills. One of the guards glanced at the radio his voice came from, and then over at him. “Well you should have warned us then.” It slowly groaned out. “Sorry, didn’t think to mention it. Could you stop pointing your weapons at the ship though? I don’t think anyone is going to come out while you’re doing that.” The guard made a wordless grunt which [Walter] figured wasn’t a happy sound. “If it can move that fast then our guns are useless if we aren’t already pointing at it.” “Their useless even if they are pointed at it. You can’t even see it move, much less activate your weapon in time.” [Eve] interjected. “Then there is no harm in us continuing to point our guns at it then.” The guard ground out even slower and louder than normal, before pausing as it listened to something over its comm. “…yes sir.” It said at last before lowering its weapon slightly. “I guess that’s as much as we can hope for.” [Walter] muttered to the rest of the team as they watched the rest of the guards begrudgingly point their weapons just far enough downwards as to not technically be pointing at the ship. [Walter] was going to continue but paused as signal came from the ship. “Team 9, this is representative [Grace] sending. Good job on diffusing the situation. I had figured a small demonstration of our capabilities was in order, but I did not expect it to startle them so thoroughly. With that in mind please inform the humans that this ship is unarmed and we will be opening a hanger door soon.” [Walter] glanced up with relief. “Yes ser, we’ll begin translating immediately.” —————————————————————— Director Townsend was not having a great day. Well, that was too harsh. So far it had been a truly remarkable day, he just wished he wasn’t the one in charge of organizing it. This morning the main thing on his mind had been tightening the budget in preparation for next month’s funding review, now he was standing in the middle of a field while a tiny alien spaceship flaunted gravity and the sound barrier a few meters from his head. It was an interesting change of pace to say the least. He glanced around at the several technicians and researchers from the physics department that he had hastily assembled. “Please tell me one of our cameras caught that.” He half whispered to one of the technicians. “Umm, yes, I think camera 4 and 5 got good shots of the deceleration event.” the man said as he began pulling up clips on a nearby laptop. The field behind the lab was currently filled with a rough semicircle of high-speed cameras, range finders, microwave scanners and whatever other equipment the physicists had been able to carry outside, all pointing at the landing site. Townsend was currently standing a few meters back, next to a pair of folding tables where the snarl of cables from all the equipment was being fed to several laptops and a small server bank. He glanced over the mess and was glad there was no chance of rain tonight. The aid confirmed they had several clear shots of the deceleration and Townsend turned his attention back to the ship now silently floating in the field before them. It was hovering in midair a few centimeters above the ground with no sign of effort, no sound or flames or gusts of wind. The grass below it was completely untouched. “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.” He thought wryly, as the pain of having to give up the grav drive they were studying was freshly renewed. Aside from the hovering the ship itself wasn’t that interesting to look at, though he did admit there was a certain elegant simplicity to it. It was a perfect ovoid, 30 or so centimeters tall and 15 wide. Its outer hull was smooth and unadorned. On the high-speed camera shot he had seen it arrive shinning like a mirror, but after coming to a halt its color had shifted, rapidly darkening into a pitch-black shade to better radiated heat. Some sort of color shifting meta material perhaps? I wonder how they managed to make something that complex reentry proof. He tore his eyes away from the strange sight as he heard an argument breaking out by the wasp enclosure. He suddenly noticed how on edge the guard detail was. “Oh for…” He leaned over to one of the NSA agents that were hovering around him like buzzards and hissed “Tell your goons to stop pointing their guns at the ship! Do you want to start a diplomatic incident?” The man opened his mouth to reply but appeared to think better of it. He sighed and spoke a few words into his earpiece. Townsend relaxed slightly as the guards lowered their weapons again. Stupid. Why did the NSA insist on bringing armed security for this? If shit hits the fan we’re screwed regardless of how many guns we have… One of the crackling voices from the wasp cage briefly rose in volume, calling out “Attention, the ship is unarmed. A hatch will open on its side in 87 seconds. It is a door to a hangar. Don’t shoot it.” before falling back into inaudibility as it started talking to a technician next to its cage. “I guess that’s my cue.” Townsend muttered as he began walking apprehensively over to the front of the crowd where the ship and captives were. He hoped the creatures were just going to leave quickly and not bother with ceremony, he really wasn’t looking forward to giving the apology speech he had hastily written on behalf of the lab. Waving off the two guards that started shadowing him he made his way over to wasp tank and watched a touch nervously as a technician opened it. The creatures paused for a bit, eying the door like they were worried of some trick, before suddenly flinging themselves out and beginning to buzz around the grass and the tray of returned equipment. “Uh, I hope everything is in order?” Townsend asked cautiously. “No, quite disordered.” The radio hissed. That’s not what I mea- His thought was cut off as the ship a couple of meters in front of them moved. A seam appeared on its smooth surface and pair of doors appeared, quickly sliding apart to reveal an opening around the size of a post-it note. He crouched down slightly to get a better look inside and saw the ‘hangar’ went back a handful of centimeters, with platforms and wasp sized indentations set into the floor and walls at regular intervals. The off-white material of the floor and walls was dotted with faintly glowing lights, seemly marking out paths or landing spots. He couldn’t make out much detail about them from where he was standing though. I doubt pressing my face up against their hull to get a closer look would go over well. His eye was eventually drawn to faint bit of movement near the front of the opening, if he hadn’t already been peering closely at the spot he doubted he would have noticed. A speck around the size of a mite was on the floor by the entrance and was shifting slightly. The radio behind him spoke up “That is the council representative.” Townsend started slightly and saw that one of the wasps was hovering near his head, keeping an eye on him while the others were gathering their equipment. The radio continued “They wish to convey gratitude/relief that you are upholding your end of the agreement. They hope this interaction will improve trust and improve future interaction.” Townsend relaxed slightly. “That is good to hear. We hope that this is the beginning of more open communication with your people. I and the rest of the facility apologize for the…trying nature of your capture. We hope we can put that period of secrecy and misunderstanding behind us.” “The representative expresses agreement.” Townsend nodded stiffly, noting that the creature didn’t mention if itself agreed. He wondered how much resentment they might be holding. He was painfully aware of the many cameras were trained on him right now and figured this might not be the best time for such delicate questions. Instead he stepped back a pace and spent a few awkward moments watching the wasps shuttling the grav drive and the dissected ‘drones’ into the ship. Thankfully they were quick and it seemed the politician was satisfied with his short exchange as it remained silent. Townsend noticed with interest that the wasps were having to tie down the equipment in the hanger as it was apparently in zero g. After a few seconds of fiddling the creatures seemed to be satisfied that all was in order and one of them turned to look out the door at Townsend and the rest of the lab crew behind him. “The ship will leave now. Thank you for releasing us.” He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Of course. Safe travels.” He replied, stepping back a few paces in case their departure was going to be as dramatic as their arrival. The doors of the ship snapped shut and hull rippled to a mirror shine once again. For a moment Townsend saw a distorted reflection of himself in the shimmering ovoid, but then with a flick of motion and hiss of wind it was gone. He whipped his head skyward and for an instant saw a faint glint of silver against the darkening sky, and a breath later everyone in the field heard the crack of a distant sonic boom. He paused like that for a few moments, just looking upwards, before turning his gaze back to Earth and walking back to the lab, sagging with relief. —————————————————————— When the door closed and the captain informed them that the ship was underway and that it seemed like nothing was being fired at them [Walter] finally let his last doubts melt away. “They did it. They actually let us go. We really are heading back.” He sent with his signal choked with relief. “You’re just now accepting that?” [Eve] asked bemusedly as the rest of the team let out a ragged cheer and began disembarking from their crafts. [Walter] [shrugged] “I didn’t want to get my hopes up to high.” He replied as he parked his craft in its familiar perch and disconnected. After scurrying down one of his crafts legs he felt his way blindly along the rungs of one of the paths set in the floor, the familiar routine of disembarking and the feeling of the solid pseudopodholds under his limbs provided a surprising amount of comfort. After [Walter] and the rest of the team cycled through the hanger’s waterlock and took off their environmental suits they could finally smell again and were immediately hit with the jubilant greeting signals of a dozen or so of their old crewmates gathered in the tunnel outside. A very familiar signal reached him, followed swiftly after by a rush of water and a thud of impact. “[Walter]!” [Faythe] sent jubilantly as she gripped him in a membrane stretching hug. “I’ve been worried sick about you guys! I tried to get [Alice] or a captain to rescue you sooner but nobody listened. I came really close to doing something stupid a few times. But you’re back now!” [Walter] [laughed] and hugged her back. “I missed you too. Can you let up a bit though? You’re crushing my gills.” The pressure dropped immediately and [Walter] stopped resembling a squeezed water balloon. “Sorry. It’s just…how have you been?” She asked, her signal fading into a much more worried tone. “…it was terrifying, painful, fascinating and boring. Often multiple at the same time. Being studied and experimented on by something that it can kill you with a twitch of its smallest limbs is…uniquely horrifying. Things got a bit better later, and I got kind of numb to the scale eventually, but let’s just say I’m glad to be back.” “Experimented on? [Eve] mentioned they did some painful things to you guys at first, what happened?” [Faythe] asked worriedly. [Walter] [shrugged] “I’d rather not relive it, at least not right now. I’m still in a wonderful mood at finally being back, I’ll process the trauma later, right now I just want to bask in the sense of normalcy of being on a familiar ship again.” [Faythe] [smiled] “Want to go to the break room and play some [Fleets] to keep your mind off things then?” “Yeah, that sounds nice.” The rest of the group was similarly breaking up, most heading to the cafeteria to get the first bit of flavorful food they had in half a day. [Walter] and [Faythe] meanwhile headed over to one of the ship’s small lounge rooms. The ship was operating with minimal crew, [Faythe] bashfully admitted [Alice] probably only let her go on this trip to prevent anymore nagging, so the room was pleasantly empty. “Nice, I think the game set is in the [scent designation] cabinet.” [Faythe] said as she entered. [Walter] drifted over to the compartment in question and fished around inside. “Hmm, I’m not feeling it, are you sure it’s…AGH!” —————————————————————— [Sybil] relaxed slightly as the little [Gaian] stopped twitching as the dart did its work. She would have to work fast, the lack of private quarters made time consuming modifications like this quite a risk. Keeping half her focus on checking the currents and scents coming through the doorway she deployed a few silencer filters to mop up the alarm scent her target had briefly given off. Clumsy she snarled to herself. She had hoped he would be more distractible. She swam over to the body now drifting limply against the far wall and began the delicate task of deploying her editing equipment. Parting the tough but annoyingly stiff cell wall that covered her current body [Sybil] formed a tube of cell membrane and stabbed it into her target. Keeping a watch on the door she split off part of her attention to focus on the data stream from the equipment she began tunneling inside. Feeling around the entrance site with a few sensor arrays she felt and tasted nothing alarming, there wasn’t any stray glue strands or chunks of mangled thought center drifting about, so the dart hadn’t failed catastrophically. She began quickly widening the hole and sending in the rest of her equipment; snipping proteins, grasping limbs and memory reading equipment were carried along a rapidly unfolding scaffolding network. The tips of this network forked and twisted deeper inside like thirsting roots, touching and tasting every structure they bumped into, following the scent left behind by the dart. After a few moments she found the signal line which the dart had first latched onto, and she sent her editing equipment along the line after it, following the trail of sent markers the little machine had laid down as it rushed along the cable. Following the pathways that walker proteins use to carry sensory data back to a target’s main thought center was a trivially simple task, after all it had to be straight forward enough for a mindless molecule to follow. The pathway grew steadily as she made her way further inwards, different lines merging together to form a major signaling trunk. Just as the diameter of the cable started to indicate she was nearly upon her target however, several of the motor proteins dragging her editing equipment along suddenly reported that they had lost grip. She felt around wildly and realized the pathway in front of her was gone. The sensory cable was sheared through, most likely via a hasty misuse of the pilot’s drone linking equipment. The fool had begun ripping his own mind apart, he would be a near vegetable at this point, assuming he hadn’t killed himself entirely in his thrashing. Damn it all. I don’t have time for this. It was at this moment the data cables near her tunnel into the target reported a strong current heading towards them. She had brief moment of shock before her mind was suddenly jerked back outwards as her connection to her hacking equipment was severed. Reeling from the violent sensory shift and the realization she had be tricked, she hastily tried to regain control. Turning her focus to the ragged remains of the data cables that had connected her to her equipment she felt through a few remaining sensing hairs that something large was rushing towards her. Something that smelled rather familiar. Her dart. Fuck —————————————————————— [Walter] was mad. No. That [word] was inadequate. He was absolutely furious. When he had felt something rushing towards him he had been confused. When he had felt it stab him he had been shocked. When he had felt it begin moving inside him, heading towards his mind, he had the icy realization that his friend was gone. That a nightmare from the brightest corners of the overworld was aboard this ship, a mind hacker. He was suddenly deeply deeply glad for the redundances he had been adding to his sensory network. Most would consider what he had been doing to himself in his limited rest time over the last 3 tenthdays highly paranoid, but after his cycles long purgatory trapped in self-inflicted sensory deprivation he had decided that he wanted a few more sensory lines and better control of his mind weaving equipment. He didn’t want a repeat of that hell to be possible. So when he felt the vile machine begin clawing its way deeper inside him he hastily powered on his weaving equipment and went to work. He rushed his nearest array towards where he felt the thing racing along, the dumb machine rapidly working its way along a major sensory pathway, its rapidly spinning corkscrew motor burrowing through the water briefly leaving a noticeable wake. A spindly limb protruded from the main body of the missile, loosely gripping the signal pathway it was swimming besides, feeling its way along as its swift passage tore walker proteins from their mountings. The moment it felt the currents from the mass of scaffolding, sensors and snipping proteins [Walter] was hurling at it the machine reacted. It released its grip on [Walter]’s signal pathway and he lost touch of it, though a few sensor hairs felt its wake. It narrowly dodged a slice from a diamoniod cutting blade which tore the cable it was just swimming along in two. [Walter] winced but he had a spare. He reached out toward the wake he could feel as it hurled itself farther away. He tried to grab the craft, splaying his mind weaving array outwards, scaffolding and motor rods cast wide like a net, but the dart was far too quick and rapidly outpaced the now drag choked limb. Fortunately, he had more than one weaving array, and by now 2 others had closed in, one of them dragging a food vacuole. He did not want to feel what kind of self-destruct poisons this thing might spit out. He forced himself to bring those limbs in slightly slower, giving time for their wakes to rapidly still in the viscous water. The dart was quiet now, but he had a vague idea of where it was lurking. If it was moving at all it must be moving slowly as he felt no hint of movement from where he had last felt it. He carefully unfurled all three arrays, feeding them more scaffolding by cannibalizing nearby sections of his cytoskeleton, englobing the region where he was sure it could have gone. At last he felt a twitch of movement. It seemed the next phase of the dart’s programming was to stealthily continue in the direction it had been heading before it was caught, as it had bumped into a section of net while slowly swimming in roughly the direction of the severed signal line. The moment it contacted the net it tried to swim way again, but [Walter] cut that section of netting free and whipped it forwards using a branch of scaffolding, and the flexible strands of motor protein in the net grabbed at the dart greedily. More lines and scaffolding piled on as he brought more sections of the net to bare, and he began hastily shuttling over the vacuole to contain it in case it might release poison in its death throws. It did, sort of. As soon as its motor and cilia were completely jammed the missile ceased struggling. [Walter] was almost hoping it was over just before the nest of cables and struts enclosing the thing was wracked by an explosion. The missile had violently split itself apart to release its payload, a cloud of particles and tangling cables tailor made to jam mental machinery. [Walter] was exceeding glad that none of his thought centers had been breached, but the cloud would still be a problem out in his main body. They jammed signaling and motor proteins just as well, and he could feel the shredded remains of the net covering the dart go numb as messages from them ground to a halt. He hastily ripping open the vacuole he had brought over and tried to englobe as much of the mess as possible. It cost him half of the remaining arrays in the area, but he managed to get most of it inside. There was still a few wisps of jamming particles floating about but he would just have to avoid them for now. With the immediate threat taken care of he turned his focus outwards to what was wearing his friend. It was still by the door, waiting for him to succumb to the glue he supposed. Shit. [Faythe] is 3 times my mass and covered in armor, she could crush me like a [bug]. I’m faster than her but she is 4 span closer to the door then me. The only thing I can hope for is surprise. With that in mind he gradually stilled the violent twitching his internal battle had caused and went limp. He felt currents close in as the thing swam over to him, and had to fight off the urge to move as it cornered him. Well. This is the exact opposite place you want to be in when fighting a mind hacker. He thought nervously as he prepared to run or wage an internal battle. He had no illusions of his repurposed civilian equipment being any match for black-market gear in a fair fight. Though, he did have some black market equipment at his disposal now. He carefully began prepping the glue and debris filled vacuole for offense, hastily gathering vacuoles of a few volatile chemicals, digestive acids and respiration byproducts and merging them with the glue one or lashing them together so they wouldn’t mix just yet. He felt some ripples as the thing fiddled next to him and he knew he didn’t have much time, he hoped this would be enough of a distraction to dart away. He began moving the whole mess with a remaining weaving array, trying to move just fast enough that he wasn’t noticeably twitching his outer membrane as the complex swam/crawled its was through his cytoskeleton, spiderlike limbs extending to grab at the web of struts and signal lines darting out like tentacles, disconnecting and reconnecting it to his signaling network as it moved. He wasn’t fast enough however, as he felt himself get stabbed a second time, and this time the hole was held open. A nest of filaments and wires squirmed their way inside him. At first it was only faint movements that nearby sensors could barely feel, and then larger motions as other things were forced through the wound. [Walter] slowed the weaving array’s movements to a crawl. It is sending stuff over, so it opened up a chink in her cell wall, that’s the only place I can get a good hit in. he thought nervously, as he cautiously dragged his bulky payload closer. Soon he felt the bulk of the machinery crawl deeper in and begin moving along where he knew the severed signal line was still drifting. He [smiled] Good, follow that dead end, nothing out of the ordinary happening over here. He continued along a fast as he dared, aware he had a time limit until the thing found the cut and realized something was up. That time limit ran out when he felt the hacker’s train of equipment stop with a lurch. With the game up he abandoned stealth and closed the last few millispan to the wound site with several cutting tools thrust out on a pillar scaffolding, aiming for the data cables he knew must be trailing there. The cables were thick, it seemed they were actually tubes with the protein walkways and vibration transmission rods within their armored walls. They were still no match for the four diamoniod cutting clamps that slammed into them though. After a quarter beat of twisting and hacking the bundle of lines came apart entirely and he yanked that strut back with the data cables still caught in its grasp to delay any reconnection. He then shoved the mess of vacuoles into the breach. The hacker for its part recovered quickly, lurching [Faythe]’s body backwards and severing the tunnel of membrane in an instant. But cell wall was not as malleable. [Walter] abandoned his finer scale controls and moved his body normally, pushing out a pseudopod with the mind weaving gear and vacuole bundle inside it and stabbed the limb into the slowly closing hole in [Faythe]’s cell wall. The last signal he sent the equipment before severing the pseudopod was to merge the little two explosive vacuoles he had stuck on the main one’s surface. He didn’t pause to admire his handywork though as he had to immediately squirm out of the way of 5 armored limbs rushing at him. He got the impression that this second hug wouldn’t end if he asked politely. He managed to weave between three of them but the last two partly encircled him and began to squeeze. He stretched his body out 3 times its normal length, trying to narrow himself down fast enough that he could slip out of its grip but it was fruitless. Another limb smacked him down and the three arms pinned him against the wall. He shoved off the wall and the thing had to dart a few limbs out to grip the ‘floor’ as it drifted backwards a touch. That was enough for him to flatten his body and slide under one of the limbs pinning him. A current warned him of another incoming blow and he narrowly dodged a serrated limb, lightly scraping his membrane. The thing had gotten enough time to fashion something more than crude clubs, and now it no longer needed to play a futile game of punching an amorphous blob. Popping one was much easier. Fortunately, it seemed the glue was beginning to have an effect, as its movements were becoming decidedly more erratic. He made a mad dash to the exit, and sprayed a series of data packets out in front of him towards the comm unit by the door. “Mind Hacker!“ He managed to [scream] before he was cut off by the thing launching itself off the back wall and barreling into him. They collided in midwater and [Walter] felt a massive gash in his side appear as its claw tore him open. He crumpled inwards around the wound, doing his best to stanch the flood of cytoplasm and internal organs. His mind began to go hazy as the amount of [ATP analog] with in him dropped precipitously. He noticed the thing wasn’t doing much better though, it was struggling to use nearly half of its body, flailing awkwardly as it tried to keep him from drifting away. Guess that glue trick wasn’t for nothing. He thought sleepily, as he felt a few weak blows and slashes rain down on him, doing little more than pushing him away from it. I hope they got the warning… was his last thought before his mind faded to scentlessness. —————————————————————— He awoke again in a medical ward with a nurse and several guards in armored environmental suits. “What happened?” He sent, feeling around wildly. A guard caught his signal packet and fed it into a large comm unit floating beside them. They paused for a moment while the machine gargled softly, and when they finally replied it was a through the same isolated comm. In the dry and formal tone of someone reciting a recording the guard responded “The crew of the [Stalking Sea Predator] received a signal from the body of [Walter] about a mind hacker attack taking place in the ship’s third lounge room. When they arrived they found the body of [Walter] unconscious from a grievous rupture and the body of [Faythe] in the process of attacking it. Initially the body of [Faythe] claimed to be run by the mind of [Faythe] and that the body of [Walter] contained the attacker, but upon requests that it submit to a medical exam it became hostile. It presently revealed that the mind of [Faythe] was not in control, but the attacker did claim it still had her in storage and could irreparably damage her at anytime. As we cannot currently rule out this claim, we are treating it as a hostage situation.” “The attacker eventually submitted to being moved to the ship’s brig to begin negotiations for a reduced sentence and the body of [Walter] was stabilized for the remainder of the 8-cycle trip back to [Luna Station]. Upon arrival a medical team and a mental hazard team were dispatched to the ship to assess the situation and to awaken the mind inside the body of [Walter]. It is currently unknown how thoroughly the mind of [Walter] was modified while in the presence of the attacker. Does this entity claim to still be the mind of [Walter]?” Oh light. Here we go. [Walter] thought worriedly as he prepared for several kilobeats of interrogation and medical scans. He didn’t feel any different and didn’t remember being modified, but the truly horrifying thing about mind hackers is that meant nothing. Eventually the interrogators were reasonably satisfied that he had the same memories as the original [Walter], and that if his personality had been replaced or significantly altered he was doing a decent job of hiding it. Like always they couldn’t rule out subtle changes or hidden triggers though, so he would be under close watch and placed on a tenthdaily schedule of mandatory psych evaluations for the foreseeable future. They removed every mind weaving tool from his body, including the gear from the hacker (boy had that raised some concerns) before finally deeming him safe enough to leave the room while under armed supervision. (Continues in comments)
The regional Household Hazardous Waste Facility in Duluth provides residents with free disposal of unwanted chemicals or other hazardous waste. Visitors may obtain free, usable items at the Product Reuse Center. Information for Businesses Local Disposal/Recycling Facilities Four drop off centers in Sacramento County are able to handle Household Hazardous Waste from residents. The City of Elk Grove operates a Special Waste Collection Center at their Elk Grove Special Waste Collection Center Facility for residents and businesses. The Household Hazardous Waste Facility will not cancel events in the event of rain or inclement weather. For questions about the Hazardous Waste Facility, e-mail [email protected], or call (805) 449-SAVE(7283). On the day of your appointment: Carefully transport your hazardous waste to the collection site. Arrive promptly at your scheduled time. Hazardous waste disposal must be handled properly; it is critical that items classified as hazardous waste do not make it into the regular waste systems. HHW (Household Hazardous Waste) products often contain dangerous chemicals that need to be handled carefully to minimize their exposure to the natural environment. Chemical Collection Center (North) 8750 Bee Ridge Road, Sarasota Disposal Monday-Saturday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Citizens' Convenience Center at the Central County Solid Waste Disposal Complex (Landfill) 4000 Knights Trail Road, Nokomis Disposal Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Chemical Collection Center (South) 250 S. Jackson To gain a better understanding of this program, please review the following document: Community Hazardous Waste Program Fact Sheet Community Hazardous Waste Collection Center Flyer; CESQG Business Brochure - English Spanish; Santa Barbara County Electronics Recycling Program Household Hazardous Waste Program Manager: Cheryl Burton-Fentress Email us at: [email protected] 6900 Hahl Road (At 290 and Gessner) Houston, TX 77040. Household Hazardous Waste Contacts: 346-286-4299 Information Line 346-286-4296 Información en Español. Open to public for Collection: Drop-off is by appointment only. Please refer Household Hazardous Waste Disposal. Many of the products we use every day are considered hazardous. They can be readily identified by certain signal words such as "danger," "warning," "caution," or "poisonous" found on their labels. These products can be harmful to humans, animals, and the environment if not disposed of properly. The City provides convenient options for residents to properly dispose of household hazardous waste. Note: In order for residents to use an HHW center or participate in the mobile events, customers must bring a recent copy of their CPS bill showing payment of the SWMD Environmental Fee and a picture ID as proof of residency.
Hazardous waste recycling. This video is unavailable. Watch Queue Queue Waste Management asks you to recycle often and recycling right by properly disposing of common household hazardous waste items. Unused paint, motor oil, batt... This educational City of Sanibel video is about what household items qualify as hazardous waste and how to safely dispose of these items. Hazardous Waste Disposal New York City. Eastern Environmental Technologies can provide disposal for a variety of waste materials. A Waste Profile must be completed and submitted with any ... Mixed Household Hazardous Waste Disposal and Recycling - Santa Clara County Household Hazardous Wastehttp://www.reducewaste.orghttp://www.facebook.com/SCCred... We provide hazardous waste disposal services to pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, research and high tech industries in Los Angeles and San Diego. Our company c... Local Pelham, New Hampshire Show with Host Bill McDevitt involving Hazardous Waste Disposal Day in Nashua New Hampshire sponsored by the N.R.P.C. (Nashua Reg... Take a journey with us to see how hazardous landfill facilities are designed and operated to keep us safe!Science, Management and Outreach of Contaminated Si... Hazardous Waste Disposal Philadelphia. http://www.easternenvironmental.com - 914-934-2100 - A wide range of hazardous and non-hazardous wastes are being gen...
