Wild, An Almost Zero Waste Toiletries Company Sells Out To Unilever

At first I thought the first word was sarcasm and didn’t realize the company was called “Wild”

Rust batteries are older than you may think

Nickel-Iron rechargable batteries have been around for over 125 years, and are sometimes called “Edison batteries” because they were produced by Thomas Edison’s battery company.

The active material of the negative plates is iron oxide (i.e. rust). They could more accurately be called iron-oxide/nickel-hydride batteries.

They have some disadvantages especially for portability (liquid electrolyte and poor weight to charge ratio) and require regular topping up electrolyte like older models of car batteries. However, they are tolerant of frequent cycling, undercharging and overcharging, and can last 20-30 years in continuous use.

Should be used to it but I’m always shocked how many rugged Aussies with a reputation for mateship and community spirit refuse to slightly change the way they do anything for the benefit of everyone.

Tough guys who won’t wear a mask to prevent spread of covid because it feels uncomfortable. Educated and erudite professionals who find putting different types of recycling into different bins too intellectually challenging. “Nature lovers” who want to burn fossil fuels to drive an oversized truck over national parks.

From the data in the last thread about this issue - the average petrol driver spends $125 per week on fuel. Covering the same distance in an EV is less than $10 in electricity per week. Buying a new EV on a loan costs $98 per week.

$98 + $10 = $108 which is less than the $125 of fuel. It’s economical to replace an ICE car with an EV right now, even if you have to borrow money to buy it, and even without considering any trade in or scrap value of the old ICE car.

They’re cookers - what minds?

It can pay for itself within a week if you get out a loan for the car because it’s cheaper to pay the interest on the loan than to pay for fuel. I did some calculations above using Australian data - short version is that a week of petrol is $124, vs a loan repayment of $98 per week plus around $10 on charging cost.

Is fuel cheap in Canada? I’ve done some calculations using Australian data, and it’s cheaper to pay off a loan to buy an electric car than to keep paying for petrol.

The cost of petrol is $2.40 per litre. According to the Automobile Association affordability dashboard, the average Australian driver paid $93.81 for fuel every week in Q4 2025, when prices were $1.82 per litre. Scaling up for the x1.32 price increase since last quarter, that’s $123.71 per week on petrol for the average driver.

The cheapest EVs here are $25,000. According to the RACV EV loan calculator, borrowing $25,000 for an EV (at current rates for a 7 year loan) means a minimum payment of $196/fortnight, or $98 per week. This could be less if you were doing a novated/salary-sacrificed lease with the tax benefits. The cost of recharging is relatively insignificant (the average 30km commute cost of $1.68 per day, or $11.76 if doing that every day of the week).

In the City Of Melbourne LGA, there was a group running last council elections called “Rip up the Bike lanes” - lead by a guy who was angry at bike infrastructure being around Lygon St because he thought they hurt the business of the cafes and restaurants there. Apparently bike riders never buy coffee or gelato.

There was a similar thing on Chapel Street with a business association leading protests against bike lanes because they said that changing parking to bike lanes would hurt their businesses (apparently bike riders never go shopping for overpriced clothing either).

Some more numbers from the RACV to dispel the EV misinformation

• “Slow” charging from a 240V mains charger adds 10-12km of range per hour charging.
• The average commute is 30km per day, so about 3 hours on mains should be sufficient for average driver.

240v charging adds 10-12km of driving range per hour. If your car is plugged in 12 hours from 7pm to 7am you can drive at least 120km each day. That’s a lot further than “just around the corner” - that RACV page also notes that the average commute is about 30km per day so you only need 3 hours on an ordinary mains.

I did the maths back in 2017 and got rid of my car. Calculated that if I took two or less car trips per week, it was cheaper to get a taxi for those than to pay for ongoing maintenance, registration etc.

So that’s why I have big calves? I thought it was all the exercise they get pushing my fat body around.

She’s not a bot, just very active on here (and a mod of many communities).

The best algorithms of big tech are not even consistently good at basic things like delivering advertisements to a relevant audience.

I’ve written online about not owning or needing a car, without any attempt to hide my activity or even identity from advertisers. I still get ads for car products, like tyres. I’ve talked about being vegetarian and still get ads for meat-based fast food. I get ads for cat and dog food despite having neither of those pets. I get ads for child-related stuff despite not having kids.

97% of new cars sold in Norway are EVs. We have excess solar power going unused. Why dig up oil just to burn it when we could be running off free solar?

Telling rich people they can’t waste fuel on their own jets and have to travel on a commercial airliner would guarantee a recession?

Heading towards bankruptcy?

lithium and the used rare earth elements can be recycled. It’s not like they’d evaporate when being used.

This always amazes me about the anti-EV hysteria.

“But they aren’t 100% renewable, you have to mine metal” as they jump in their combustion car powered by a fuel that has to be mined only to be burnt up in use.

As I said, I reckon the best thing the govt can do for everyone including those at the bottom of the economic hierarchy is to put some pressure on those countries receiving our LNG to reciprocate.

Why not limit the most excessive uses of fuel? Private jets should be restricted so more fuel is reserved for essential trips. Combustion car races, use of yachts etc could be suspended until they replace with electric or the crisis is over.

I would prefer to see fuel rationed for the most important uses rather than the government cut tax on it to make it cheaper for the most wasteful people to use it all up.