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Hi all, Last minute reminder of the meet tonight. Weather may be kind so lts see those Westfields lined up in the car park!

I can vouch for this...

Afternoon all. I am helping to dispose of/recycle where possible some items and I have reached my level of what the devil... There are 2 walking frames to be returned BUT neither the local hospitals nor Age UK will take them, and I understand there is a health and safety question. But they can be assessed, surely... They are brand new with less than 1 hours use on either of them. I am told by the NHS and Age UK to scrap them. I don't want to because it's a waste (more on waste in a minute). There is also a whole load of VHS video tapes. The cardboard sleeves are easy enough but again I don't want to put the tapes into general waste/landfill. Any suggestions? Now, the waste thing... As well as the two walking frames the other "big ticket" item is a pacemaker monitor. It was given to the individual so that the cardiac team can download data about the patient. Amazing. Less amazing (what the devil 1) is that now it is no longer required the advice is to put it in the electrical recycling. Then (what the devil 2) the advice is that the monitor is "hard coded" to the serial number of the pacemaker and cannot be reprogrammed. Contradicts the next point but I have my doubts about that what the devil 3, it costs more to re-programme than buy a new one. So is it or is it not re-programmable? The reasoning is that because the device is "linked to the patient" there is a patient confidentiality question. I believe that this is something that could be mitigated fairly easily. Bottom line is, this is for me, almost an unforgiveable waste of our money and I am sure it is the tip of the iceberg. I support our doctors and nurses of course and speaking personally have had nothing but the best treatment when I have needed it. But if it is being run/managed this way then I am now starting to have some sympathy for the government when trying to reign in NHS costs. I do appreciate that somewhere down the line the people that make policy may well be profiting from it (don't get me started) but even so, if we (UK PLC) want to reduce emissions and be more green and all that, then NHS waste needs to be brought in to much MUCH sharper focus, and right now 'cos I am betting it is a significant contributor to our overall emissions count... And breathe...

I'll be heading over, see you guys in a bit Ian

It's looking like I'll miss the rain by heading over, so I'll be there in the XI but with my lid in case I'm wrong. Hopefully others will feel as brave/foolish!

Don't think any recycler would welcome the VHS tapes. Mechanical recycling usually means shredding to separate different materials e.g. the metal springs and the plastic in a VHS tape housing. But the tape itself would cause major issues in a recycling plant cos it would wrap around everything. Even if you pull the tape out first, there's more than one type of plastic in the housings so the plastic pieces would need to be identified after shredding. This can currently only be done with near infra-red lights, cameras and air jets. But black plastic doesn't reflect infra red so the cameras can't identify what plastic it is. There has been some research into using terrawaves instead of NIR but I don't think it's reached a practical level yet. NHS I have the same experience. Still have my Mrs' crutches that she hardly used after her hip replacement. 7 years ago. Wouldn't take 'em back. Ditto the high level bog seat that was never taken out of its box (think we sold that). No idea if the electronics could be reused but that is OK to go in the electrical recycling. Anything with a PCB contains gold and it gets separated, concentrated into a "copper/precious" stream with is then smelted by secondary copper smelters, with the precious being recovered from the sludge left after the raw copper is electrolysed to get it to high purity. And definitely tip of the iceberg; waste in the NHS is phenomenal.

Sold, to a man of this parish.

Have a great day @Alex Gaskin & @Michael8 🍺🎂🎂🍺

…maybe not. I can take a hint.

I was there in 2020 with my BRZ, it was about the only show still happening during Covid. certainly a good mix of cars, trade stalls and well turned out.

Nah, might look a bit naff.

A good turn out last night, even if the run there and back was a tad chilly!