Friday Follower #7 and a Shoegasm

<a href="http://gillianhefer.blogspot.com/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVoYj0Pjq-I1wJKpkV7PCQS5Ue7dIkVqDc24liceGz0G5NePqH2lbfU2qx0v9xorbStHtc_-Y281zQFzALJ9mbHcpNI5LYIHa7zzDhNy8I6oR2bdOVUZV2LyJZLxOES8HSHghjeg9gE3K5/s1600/Friday+Follower.jpg" alt="A Daft Scots Lass" width="400" height="137" /></a>

Alma does Blogging is a fellow Ginger and a Durbanite! To you foreign Plonkers that read my blog, that means she's a local bokkie, a South African! 

Her blog is like a box of chocolates - full of all sorts.

Welcome to Friday Follower, Alma!

I have possibly the most unimaginative name for my blog but when I started it,  I did not know which direction it would take; work or pleasure.

Bugger work.  I do so much research and read so many wonderfully clever blogs by seriously clever people that I am sure no-one would read my 2 cents on the vast subject of social media.  So fun and frivolity, venting and vocalising nonsense became the blog’s persona.

I am also a red-head but my colouring is called Strawberry Blonde.  Blerrie pretentious, né?  I live in Durban and work from home assisting companies and individuals with their setup, strategy and training on social networks. I am so fortunate to love what I do. 

I have a teenage daughter who I love to bits but refer to as The Alien.  You can read why here and let me know if you agree with me and if you can enlighten me as to whether male teenagers have similar characteristics. 

My husband of 15 years is called Chicken Man. No, he is not scared of me (I wish!) but he works in the chicken industry and talks chicken in his sleep.  The Ama Glug-Glug wine club is my substitute for drugs and therapy.

Whilst my 4 pets watch my every move, I find plenty of topics to blog about even if I don’t leave the house. Sure, a lot of my posts are absolute rubbish but I always feel a sense of relief or pleasure after pressing “publish post” My most popular post was just a vent I had during a particularly bad day. Obviously people like to feel that they are not alone in having those shitty days when nothing seems to go right.

Thank you A Daft Scots Lass for your humorous blog which I visit whenever work gets hectic and I need some light relief.  Your prolific posting inspires me to post more frequently.....actually, let’s be honest - your prolific posting puts me to shame and is the firm kick up the arse I need to blog more often.

<a href="http://gillianhefer.blogspot.com/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEBC5CjIzVFFAwjP98vng5gRchVZ3GR44PBZRCDDfXvD0zRrOOQVprxxvDJEweZyL44ZjLGKkjARFjcG3dw_TlWT-UMAG8KfXrz5tpmIZOmcxfUr_zXPfjHr8Zo_mKD05Fl7kcRlA-Z1c/s1600/fridayshoegasm.jpg" alt="A Daft Scots Lass" width="240" height="217" /></a>

$29.99 at Shoe Ocean

$29.99 at Shoe Ocean

Bamboo Wedge in Blue $25.99

Pwetty pwetty Louboutins.  My favourite....

Green Pee...and I'm not talking about UTI

Yeah thats right....  Get paid to pee.

That's the deal on offer in Durban, South Africa where the city is looking to buy liquid waste - Green Pee - to encourage residents to use dry toilets, according to SAPA.
Aiming to improve hygiene and save money, the city has installed in home gardens about 90,000 toilets that don't use a single drop of water.

Now Durban wants to install 20-litre containers on 500 of the toilets to capture urine (rich in nitrates, phosphorus and potassium, which can be turned into fertiliser).


A municipal worker would collect the jerry cans once a week and could pay around R30 to the family - not a small sum, to some! 

Currently the tanks are emptied by each household, and the waste often ends up getting dumped into the environment.

But some residents are already asking, WWMD (What Will Malema Do, once he has dealt with Twitter) and WWZD (What Would Zille Do)?

Swiss lab Eawag and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are backing a study to draw up the modalities for the scheme, which is already winning fans.


"If we can turn the toilets into a source of revenues, then they will want to use the toilets," said Neil MacLeod, Durban's head of water and sanitation.

Most people are reluctant to use the dry toilets. In the sprawling township of Inanda, residents have ripped doors and roofs off the outhouses, annexed them to the main house, or completely stripped them away.


Discussing bodily fluids is so taboo that people are reluctant to explain their discomfort. One young mother accused thieves of stealing "the door and the toilet" from her outhouse, which she now uses as a garage.


"When the (city) council brings the toilets to them, they look at it as an inferior system," said Lucky Sibiya, an outreach officer with the water department.


"People don't understand how important it is," he said. "There is a belief saying that touching the faeces brings misfortune."


As soon as they can afford it, people invest in a septic tank and abandon the dry toilets, which require spreading a layer of sand after each use and using separate sections for the urine and the solid waste. The tanks then must be emptied regularly.


Dry toilets were invented in Yemen centuries ago.


"They work well in rural areas because the fertiliser produced from the urine and the faeces is used locally," said Pierre-Yves Oger, a water and sanitation consultant based in South Africa.

"But in urban areas, there's a dissociation between the producer (of the waste) and the user of the recycled products, and it's very hard to overcome the psychological block," he said.


That's why few cities have launched large-scale dry toilet projects. Durban began its programme in 2002 when a cholera outbreak revealed the lack of hygiene in a city where more than a quarter of the four million residents have no sanitation.

To avoid having to install an entire sanitation system, and to save water, Durban opted for dry toilets. The city remains convinced that was the right choice.


"South Africa is a water-stressed country," said Teddy Gounden, who heads the project. "With the increase in demand for drinking water, we cannot afford to flush this valuable resource down the sewer."

Article courtesy of SAPA