do the right thing

al and i were in perth on tuesday to meet a friend, and while we were walking down murray street, al noticed some graf on the footpath. as we continued to walk towards the city centre, more odd colours and shapes were noticed. we eventually made out that these dark blobs were actually stencils.

if you've ever walked on the footpaths in perth city and actually looked at them, you'd notice that they are pretty grungy. these stencils were so well done that they blended in to the aesthetic almost seemlessly. the stencils were representations of the people walking on the footpath. men in suits, people with backpacks, it was great.

so, al and i grabbed the camera and took some shots. as we were doing this, people, being curious creatures, started to look at the footpath as well, and you could just about make out the smile on their faces as they realised what they were looking at. beautiful!!

i'll get al to help me out putting some pics on this page so everyone can see them.

so, after our walk down murray street, we headed back to the train station. our friend was looking for a bin on the whitfords platform, but none were to be found. he asked the friendly, neighbourhood train guard what the deal was. apparently, perth train station staff are removing bins because they pose a terrorism risk!! what the fuck!!

now, i can understand that explosive packages may be surreptisiously placed into bins, but removing all bins from the train platform - wow! when i was growing up the people of perth were bombarded with the message "do the right thing" and put your rubbish in the bin. and now, what are we meant to do with our rubbish?

yes, we could take our own rubbish bag and bring our rubbish home with us, walk a little further to find a bin, or just chuck it on the ground. i'm guessing that most will go for the third option. so, a bit of rubbish on the ground is the price we pay for making sure our train stations are safe from terrorist attacks.

i imagine that bins in bus stations and airports will also go the same way. what about bins at shopping centres, schools, universities, even those in parliament house and foyers of buildings.

now, it would be a good thing if people started to approach the fewer bins landscape by reducing the amount of rubbish that is created, but i can't see that happening anytime soon. we are hooked on consumerism, and consumerism involves a hell of a lot of rubbish. everything is packaged!!

so, as a final word, i guess it will be interesting to see how we start to tackle the increase in rubbish on our streets that the threat of terrorism will lead to. fucking terrorists. :)