Author: jennynazak

(By me, this privileged Boomer who started out her adult life as an Ayn Rand libertarian and academic snob, dropped out of the middle class 25 years ago, and morphed into an extreme lefty anarchist via lived experience.)

Those of us who identify as members of the working classes need to cultivate our class solidarity/consciousness.

Any of us who already feel like we have that mind-set, then we need to expand out into those of our circles who identify as “liberal” but do not quite have class solidarity-consciousness.

Also we need to collect & support those of our fellow working-class folks who are truly inhabiting the most socio / economically marginalized rungs but are still trauma-identifying with the oligarchish class.

topics include: rich blight; urban disinvestment; hollowed-out tourist economy

Seeing a mow & blow landscaping crew leaf-blow the entire parking lot of a building that’s been left vacant for years is like watching a cleaning crew swab the decks on the sinking Titanic.

The noise is offensive on such a high level, because it’s not just about the actual noise, which is bad enough.

The sheer staggering economics of a society where some people are so filthy rich that they can leave an entire oceanfront commercial building sitting. For YEARS.

In my 2015 talk for the inaugural Elevate conference (a sort of annual mini Ted talk -style event for Daytona Beach), I referred to this phenomenon as “rich blight.” You can still see it either on my YouTube channel or on the Elevate youtube channel or both.

It’s possible to look up a property “owner” (=hoarder)’s identity on the county tax website but seems like it’s always some shady-sounding “mysterious jibber-jabber name LLC” , based in Offshore Evadia with no phone number and just a PO Box.

I used to occasionally look up these land-hoarders and write them postal mail, politely asking them to rent out or free up their buildings, and sometimes even offering them information & free marketing assistance (which I felt i had a vested interest in doing because I live here and we need to build a real community here), but of course I never heard back.

The sad thing is, this Starbucks was a super successful location. The employees liked it here (not in small part because they could see the ocean out the takeout window, and breathe in fresh sea breeze) and they earned good money, and there was generally a robust line of customers (among others, a lot of students from the local universities came all the way over the bridge to study and collaborate here), and a nice vibe in there considering it was a corporate establishment.

”Successful” obviously means something different on a corporate level than it does on an employee and customer level. Maybe shareholders supersede store profits in terms of importance? I don’t know enough about it to know for sure. Can only imagine.

But by golly they have the time and attention to leaf blow an entire parking lot that is always going to have sand on it, because hello, we live next to the Atlantic Ocean.

(Side note: What is it with men and needing to vacuum up the entire great outdoors, I always wonder. And actually, it’s not the men’s fault, I think it’s a thing in wyt soupremasee culture / respectability politics.)

If you are interested in the topic of urban vacancy/disinvestment, I recommend you check out the following pages:

Strong Towns
Planning Peeps

Also, I’m going to be pasting a link to an article about land banks. Land banks can be a great tool for communities to take back ownership of their places, and put it in the hands of locals who actually lives there and care. Of course, enough of the elected officials and other PTB in a place have to be on board that that’s a priority.

This might sound strong to some of you, but I think that buy and hold landlords are engaging in parasitic behavior. I’m not gonna lie, I have often sympathized with people squatting a building.

(Altho, squatting seems to have become less of a thing over the years, as surveillance techniques and punishment have become more extreme. And furthermore, the overlords have persuaded members of the working classes to rat each other out to code & cops instead of feeling solidarity. I’m not saying squatters are necessarily great neighbors, but I will be honest, I have felt safer and more community next to houses of squatters than right across the street from a police station.)

Parasitic owners: Free up your damn buildings if you’re not going to use them! The empty lots too! And in the meantime, quit the stupid leaf blowing. It’s noisy and smelly and obnoxious. It’s the wrong combination of too much life and not enough life. Intrusive landscaping fussbudgetry plus vacant building equals double bad.

Further reading:

“Why Land Banks Matter“
(communityprogress.org; October 28, 2024): “For neighborhoods burdened by systemic disinvestment; vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties often become symbols of neglect. They pose social, economic, health, and environmental hazards to communities and residents. Addressing these properties requires intervention at multiple points and systems—and one powerful tool many communities use to address vacancy and promote equitable development is the land bank.”

Tiny sewing kit made from a discarded chewing-tobacco tin. Well, the lid is metal and the bottom is plastic, so I guess it’s not technically a “tin” but I still feel like calling it that is most accurate.

The holes around the outside of the circle, I drilled in order to add fine wire which could then serve as a scaffolding for weaving a design out of embroidery floss, beads, etc. That still might happen, but for now, I decided I would rather just paint the lid with a design indicating that it’s a sewing kit.

There are so many kinds of cute little containers that can be turned into mini sewing kits. Those itty-bitty mint tins; one of those is one of my favorites. And the clear plastic “hinged” containers used for a large pack of sugarless gum are another good one.

To tuck into purse or bag for emergency repairs (mine or someone else’s); or give to people who want them. And I keep one in each main work area or common area in the house.

Pics here.

#urbanbabushka #sewing #repurposing

Giant-sized empty coffee tins make great little waste-baskets for each room. It’s amazing how small a can I can get away with, when all that’s being thrown away is pretty much just plastic packaging.

Paper and cardboard get composted, as does food. Recyclable plastic and aluminum cans, as well as plastic jugs and bottles, go into the recycling bin.

As I’ve said before, I never assume that anything gets recycled. So when I can, I reuse and re-purpose. Or avoid the container in the first place.

These giant coffee containers probably came from somebody’s curbside recycling bin; it’s so long ago I can’t remember where I got them lol. (The cans are about 7 inches tall and 6 inches wide; I think it’s the 4-pound can of coffee).

They’ve got just the right amount of rust on them to be easily paintable with the water-based acrylic paints in my art supplies.

See pic here. For as long as the will of zucc shall allow.

Photo on left: [sturdy plastic green box issued by the city, full to the brim with 2 weeks’ worth of our household recycling]

Photos on right [cylinder about 4 feet high and 10 inches in diameter, made of chicken-wire and containing plastic ziploc bags and various other lightweight nonrecyclable plastic trash]:

• Above: About two MONTHS’ worth of our household trash, household of 3.
• Below: The same household trash, compacted by squashing down with a shovel.

I took these photos to demonstrate the extent to which food packaging accounts for a huge proportion of household trash in the USA.

The three of us buy very little stuff other than food. We each have different eating habits and dietary needs. One housemate cooks a lot and uses about one Ziploc bag per day to marinate chicken etc.

I personally am able to avoid a lot of food and drink packaging simply because I’m very obsessed with avoiding it. For example, I am able to get produce from local farms delivered without plastic bags. And I’m able to get milk in returnable glass jars. And when I want a soda as an occasional treat, I walk down the street to the convenience store with my refillable cup. And I buy delicious fresh-baked loaves of bread from a European market and they put it in a plain paper bag.

Even so, there is a lot of packaging I find difficult to impossible to avoid. Very much to my chagrin!

I enjoy making what you might call “practical trashy demos”: Visual representations of the trash we produce. The little “trash cage” cylinder is made of chicken wire that someone threw away at curbside. Once it gets super full I will empty it into the actual trash can and put it out for the trash collection.

According to the @Riot for Austerity numbers, the average US household produces 4.5 pounds of trash per person per day. A lot of that is probably because people throw food in the garbage. Instead of composting it. And a lot of it is surely packaging for food and consumer goods.

Our cylinder of “fluffy” plastic trash weighs maybe 7 pounds.

Also, although I mentioned that we use a recycling bin, I never assume anything really gets recycled. I end up using a lot of the tin cans in craft projects. And, fun fact, in our super humid and salty coastal climate, a tin can will rust and disintegrate in a matter of weeks. The early rust stage is a great opportunity for decorative painting of cans to repurpose.

You can see photos here on my deep green Facebook page for as long as the will of Zucc allows.

I just now sent this to a colleague who wants to use some of my material in her presentations. I’m sharing it here too in case it’s helpful to you, my dear readers.

“jenny readily admits that her posts and public speeches might sound a bit scoldy sometimes. She’s not writing originally for a civilian audience, but for an audience of activist-minded people who are kept awake at night by their worries about climate and biospheric collapse, and really want to do something about it but feel helpless.

“Furthermore, she is writing mainly for an audience of her fellow white middle-class Boomers. Most of whome have amassed a certain amount of money and other resources while still feeling powerless.

“jenny wants her peers to recover their awareness of their power, so that they can use it in a more constructive direction.

“Not that she doesn’t want to help other demographics as well, but that she considers other demographics besides her fellow white Boomers (and Boomer-adjacent Silent Generation folks) to be outside of her lane to boss around.”

those of you who have been following me for a while know that I provide tips and resources for people seeking to reduce their footprint. But sometimes, many times actually, a person who is just as far as long as I am in some category assumes that I am somehow way further along.

Which in this case is definitely not the case. Avoiding single-use plastics and other single-use crap feels like a blood sport at times lol! Anyway her comment is in the screenshot, and my response is pasted below.

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This extremely well-meaning individual is beating herself up trying to so-called to “get to zero,” and I guess assuming that I am somehow at zero. There is no such thing as zero. There’s a reason why one of my favorite groups is called journey to zero waste.

The plastic thing is something that you just can’t beat yourself up about. The retailers and restaurants and everyone pretty much shove it down our throats. Sure, do what you can, but probably all the tips I can offer are things you have already thought of. And please don’t think I’m anything close to zero in this department!

Some things that help: buying from local farms, buying from a local dairy that still uses milk bottles including exchanging them, and buying from a local retailer who is super on board with avoiding plastic. Also, always remembering my cloth bags when I shop, and always remembering my reusable takeout containers when I go to restaurants. And always remembering to not ask to ask for no straw. That said, I don’t always remember, and even when I remember they sometimes still stick the straw or the plastic utensils or whatever in there. Hope this helps! Also, do you belong to any of the reuse and recycle groups here on Facebook? They are super inspirational and lots of emotional support. I wouldn’t be able to function without them, because I sometimes drive myself crazy about the plastic!

I share your aspiration about not wanting to send it past your yard, but honestly, reading the level you’re at, it doesn’t sound like I’m any further along than you are. We do the best we can. And as we normalize speaking up about this, we might help shift the envelope in our area. For example, if 10 customers in a day walk into a retailer and then they refuse to buy something that’s packaged in plastic, it might have an effect. Especially if it’s a local business as opposed to a big corporate supermarket etc.

I’m a huge advocate for personal responsibility and doing something everything we can as an individual, but that can only take us so far. The next step is speaking up about it and influencing the people around us. Which can be hard, because one gets a lot of pushback and condescension, as you have surely discovered yourself!

PS. And on a meta note, social media can be very misleading as we know. We only see peoples outside’s that they present. As an influencer, even though I’m just a micro influencer with a micro following, I have in recent years become acutely conscious of how I have unintentionally contributed to people being demoralized. I’m doing my best to remedy that going forward.

PPS. If You have been following me for a while, and I am still the only environmental educator/inflencer, or even just the main one that you know, please start following other people, such as the many whose work that I share in here and on my other platforms. Many many people are a lot further along than I am. And can help you!