#Bottled Water Market Report

[priyankap0018]

https://www.kenresearch.com/bottled-water-market

[aimarketresearch]

Collapsible Water Bottle Market Size, Share, Trends, Key Drivers, Growth, Challenges and Opportunity Forecast

Collapsible Water Bottle Market business report provides a profound overview of product specification, technology, product type and production analysis considering major factors such as revenue, cost, and gross margin. The data and information collected to generate this top-notch market report has been derived from the trusted sources such as company websites, white papers, journals, and mergers etc. Collapsible Water Bottle Market report includes basic, secondary and advanced information related to the global status, recent trends, market size, sales volume, market share, growth, future trends analysis and segment.

The crucial business strategies recognized by the important individuals from the Collapsible Water Bottle market have likewise been coordinated in this market analysis report. The competitive landscape part of this business report provides a clear insight into the market share analysis of key industry players. Key shortcomings and strengths, the risks experienced by the main contenders in the worldwide Collapsible Water Bottle market, have been a fraction of this research study. The study encompasses a market attractiveness analysis, wherein each segment is benchmarked based on its market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.

Access Full 350 Pages PDF Report @

Data Bridge Market Research analyses that the global collapsible water bottle market was valued at USD 1,577.68 Million in 2022, and is expected to reach USD 2,630.73 Million by 2030, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.60% during the forecast period of 2023 to 2030. In addition to the insights on market scenarios such as market value, growth rate, segmentation, geographical coverage, and major players, the market reports curated by the Data Bridge Market Research also include in-depth expert analysis, geographically represented company-wise production and capacity, network layouts of distributors and partners, detailed and updated price trend analysis and deficit analysis of supply chain and demand.

Table of Content:

Part 01: Executive Summary

Part 02: Scope of the Report

Part 03: Global Collapsible Water Bottle Market Landscape

Part 04: Global Collapsible Water Bottle Market Sizing

Part 05: Global Collapsible Water Bottle Market Segmentation by Product

Part 06: Five Forces Analysis

Part 07: Customer Landscape

Part 08: Geographic Landscape

Part 09: Decision Framework

Part 10: Drivers and Challenges

Part 11: Market Trends

Part 12: Vendor Landscape

Part 13: Vendor Analysis

Objectives of the Report

To carefully analyze and forecast the size of the Collapsible Water Bottle market by value and volume.

To estimate the market shares of major segments of the Collapsible Water Bottle

To showcase the development of the Collapsible Water Bottle market in different parts of the world.

To analyze and study micro-markets in terms of their contributions to the Collapsible Water Bottle market, their prospects, and individual growth trends.

To offer precise and useful details about factors affecting the growth of the Collapsible Water Bottle

To provide a meticulous assessment of crucial business strategies used by leading companies operating in the Collapsible Water Bottle market, which include research and development, collaborations, agreements, partnerships, acquisitions, mergers, new developments, and product launches.

Key questions answered

How feasible is Collapsible Water Bottle Market for long-term investment?

What are influencing factors driving the demand for Collapsible Water Bottle near future?

What is the impact analysis of various factors in the Global Collapsible Water Bottle market growth?

What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are?

Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America

Some of the major players operating in the global collapsible water bottle market are:

Nomader, LLC (U.S.)

Baiji Bottle (Iraq)

Zoro Tools, Inc (U.S.)

ManlyCamp (U.S.)

Cascade Designs, Inc.(U.S.)

Eclipse Foundation (Belgium)

Lollicup USA Inc (U.S.)

Xiamen Years Trading Co., LTD. (China)

Suzhou Eron Industries Co., Ltd (China)

Fuqing Shengde Plastic & Rubber Products Co., Ltd.  (China)

Ningbo Easyget Co., Ltd (China)

Shenzhen Bien Technology Co., Ltd.  (China)

Guangzhou Damuge Commodity Co., Ltd (China)

Comlom Industry & Trading Co., Ltd. (China)

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[esglatestmarketnews]

ESG Innovations in the Bottled Water Industry

Concerted efforts to boost water conservation have prompted bottled water brands to bank on environmental, social and governance (ESG) pillars. Maintaining the delicate balance between the ecosystem and human needs will foster environmental sustainability. Brands are vying to bolster their sustainability journey with commitments across packaging, climate change, water and sourcing. Moreover, emphasizing labor management, supply chain labor standards, corporate governance, board diversity and transparency will develop resiliency and help produce high-quality and safe products. 

Prioritizing ESG has become paramount for leading companies to stay ahead of the game amidst stiff competition. Consumers have increasingly sought bottled water. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, bottled water outnumbered soft drinks in the U.S., amassing 15.7 billion gallons of water as of 2021. The total volume of packaged drinks surpassed the all-time peak of the carbonated drink of 15.3 billion gallons in 2004. Industry players are expected to bank on the three pillars as ESG reporting is poised to garner headlines while framing sustainable strategies. 

Key Companies in this theme

    • Nestlé, PepsiCo

    • The Coca-Cola Company

    • DANONE

    • Nongfu Spring

    • National Beverage Corp.

    • Keurig Dr Pepper Inc.

Environmental Perspective 

Sustainable packaging solution has received an impetus to negate the environmental impact of plastic bottles. According to the survey conducted by the Harris Poll for the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), nine out of ten Americans sought the availability of bottled water wherever other drinks were sold. Soaring consumer preference for bottled water has prompted industry leaders to use recycled PET and HDPE plastic.

Prominently, PET bottled water containers have reduced material usage and weigh less. Moreover, rPET (recycled PET) and rHDPE (recycled HDPE) have become pronounced. In February 2023, Revalyu announced an infusion of USD 50 million to build a PET bottle recycling plant in the U.S. The company will use water- and energy-conserving advanced recycling methods on 12 million PET bottles per day when operation starts in 2024. With recyclable and sustainable packaging more in demand than ever, industry leaders will likely bolster their environmental profile. 

Is your business one of participants to the Bottled Water Industry? Contact us for focused consultation around ESG Investing, and help you build sustainable business practices

Social Perspective

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has become imperative to narrow the gender gap across organizations. Recruiting from diverse backgrounds, social dialogue and emphasizing workplace safety can provide promising growth opportunities. In 2021, Danone rolled out the “Future of Work” study to redefine the ways of working. Besides, it fosters equal pay for men and women and has deployed a parental policy globally, covering 91,628 employees. 

Companies have left no stone unturned to underpin and promote human rights. In 2021, Danone bolstered a partnership with UN Women and Bonafont in Mexico to equip and train women with entrepreneurship skills. The company has propelled its human rights policy as it has pledged to deploy and develop Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) systems emphasizing forced labor in its operations. In 2020, it attained the 5-year ambition of reducing lost time accidents by 50% between 2015-2020. Ensuring health & safety with a safe working environment will remain indispensable to streamline operations.

Governance Perspective

The business practices and principles designed to propel corporate governance, tax transparency, ethical behavior, accountability and board diversity have become pronounced. The Coca-Cola Company has an Audit Committee, a Committee on Directors and Corporate Governance, a Talent and Compensation Committee, an ESG and public policy committee, a Finance Committee and an Executive Committee to help smoothly discharge governance duties. 

In 2022, the Talent and Compensation Committee gave the nod to link the ESG performance measures to annual and long-term incentive programs, thereby fostering executive compensation. The beverage giant has also incorporated its 2030 Water Security Strategy and World Without Waste packaging strategy (50% recycled material in all packages by 2030) into the 2022-2024 incentive awards. 

The growing prominence of water security and the need for smart water policies has amplified the topic of water governance. Coca-Cola has incorporated certain ESG metrics to underscore water issues. It has over 225 bottling partners across 200 countries and territories. Moreover, in 2021, the drink company earned a spot on the “A-List” of CDP for leadership in corporate transparency and action on water security. 

Incumbent players have depicted increased traction for organic and inorganic growth strategies to tap into the global ecosystem. Brands are likely to map opportunities from collaboration, technological advancements, innovations and research & development activities. To illustrate, in December 2022, PepsiCo set a goal to double the reusable packaging for beverages to 20% by 2030. These trends suggest that the global bottled water market could expand at 6.7% CAGR between 2022 to 2030. 

Related Reports:

Luxury Footwear Industry ESG: https://astra.grandviewresearch.com/luxury-footwear-industry-esg-outlook

Handbag Industry ESG: https://astra.grandviewresearch.com/handbag-industry-esg-outlook

Disposable Gloves Industry ESG: https://astra.grandviewresearch.com/disposable-gloves-industry-esg-outlook

About Astra – ESG Solutions by Grand View Research

Astra is the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) arm of Grand View Research Inc. – a global market research publishing & management consulting firm.

Astra offers comprehensive ESG thematic assessment & scores across diverse impact & socially responsible investment topics, including both public and private companies along with intuitive dashboards. Our ESG solutions are powered by robust fundamental & alternative information. Astra specializes in consulting services that equip corporates and the investment community with the in-depth ESG research and actionable insight they need to support their bottom lines and their values. We have supported our clients across diverse ESG consulting projects & advisory services, including climate strategies & assessment, ESG benchmarking, stakeholder engagement programs, active ownership, developing ESG investment strategies, ESG data services, build corporate sustainability reports. Astra team includes a pool of industry experts and ESG enthusiasts who possess extensive end-end ESG research and consulting experience at a global level.

For more ESG Thematic reports, please visit Astra ESG Solutions, powered by Grand View Research

[koenigami]

tags : fem!reader, fluff, comfort, mentions of anxiety, suggestive, cw shidou ryusei

It’s just another press conference. Just another few journalists shooting questions at you and your team, but mostly you. You stiffly lean back into your chair and watch as more and more people gather in the room. Cameras are being set up, microphones everywhere, more cameras, more people. Some are already taking pictures, and the incessant flashes blind you. 

You sigh when you feel something warm engulf the hands in your lap. Whether it is because you’ve been way too deep in your own head, or because SHIDOU for once decided to opt for a humble appearance, you haven’t noticed him take a seat beside you until his hand found yours. 

“They weren’t even shaking that much the first time you wrapped them around my big-” 

“I swear to god, if you finish that sentence, these hands are going to be wrapped around your damn throat.” you grit and eye him from the side, the light of the flashes casting shades along his perfect side profile.

“It’s not like that hasn’t happened before either.” He grins at the disturbed expression on your face, and the unusually soft chuckle he lets out seems to alleviate some of the pressure on your chest. You free yourself from his grasp and huff, seemingly annoyed, but the silence that settles between the both of you is a comfortable one. 

With a lazy, almost bored look on his face, Shidou watches you as you busy yourself with the bottle of water on the desk in front of you. Your finger mindlessly traces the brand name on the packaging, while the loud buzz and whir of people slowly seems to settle down. Journalists and entire reporting teams are gathered in front of his soccer team, impatiently waiting for the start of the conference to be pronounced. 

So many gazes are already averted towards the star player Shidou Ryusei, and yet all he can see is you. All he wants to see is you because all these fancy schmancy interviews, marketing formalities and conferences- He couldn’t care less about all of it. As long as he can play soccer the way he wants to, he guesses he can accept the fact that he has to entertain these lowlife puppets. 

As one of the puppets eventually asks you their first question, Shidou nonchalantly leans back in his seat with his legs wide spread as if he was on his couch at home. His knee touches yours under the table, successfully gaining your attention and he hums satisfiedly when you accept the open hand that he has splayed out on his thigh in a silent offer. 

With your fingers interlaced with his, you redirect your attention to the public in front of you, and speak so clearly and steadily like you always do once your initial uneasiness fades away. And once the journalists move on to the team’s coach, Shidou softly squeezes your hand. You did good. Two squeezes from you. Thank you.

And he’s convinced that all he needs is soccer and you.

[simp-ly-writes]

Crush

─────── · ·

Pairing: Spencer Agnew x Shy!Reader

─ · · SUMMARY: You try and hide your crush on your co-worker.

─ · · TAGS: mutual pining, gender-neutral pronouns, fluff, hurt/comfort, meet-cute, cheesiness, confessions.

─ · · MASTERLIST | TAGLIST REQUEST | WORDCOUNT: 1,765

─ · · A/N: I told myself I would never write about IRL people nor ever post this or even go back to my smosh phase but somethings in the water today I guess!

─────── · ·

↳ You had originally worked for Good Mythical Morning as one of the leads of the marketing team before you switched over to Smosh as they re-bought the company. You would miss your team, your friends for the past several years dearly. But you were invested in the new challenge of getting these channels back to their glory days with new content and ideas to work on.

↳ You kept to yourself as best as you could as your new co-workers came up to you and introduced themselves by your desk side. Spencer was not the first to come up and say hi to you, in actuality- it was you who rather abruptly walked into him at the end of your first week. The distinct smell Mountain Dew Kickstarter spreader across every fiber, drenching your shirt as it spilled equally over his hoodie.

You remember placing your hands to your mouth in horror, a string of apologies set upon heated cheeks before rushing in to the nearby staff room and back out with a wad of paper towels as you started to dab at his chest before throwing them in his face once remember you did not know your co-workers good enough yet.

Spencer laughed, taking none of it to heart as he dried himself off as best as he could while not making any eye-contact towards you. You apologized once more, extending your hand awkwardly to greet your new acquaintance.

"name," you stated softly in seeing the growing number of people exit the room that he just exited from, it appears the filming just finished for lunch.

"Spencer," he shook you hand, offering a polite smile before looking down the hall. Various cast members you remember meeting slapped him on the shoulder and gave you a wave before continuing down the hall.

"You're not going to report this to HR for anything, right?" you asked, half-joking half not as you looked down to see that your undershirt was indeed visible.

His laugh caught your own as you it died down to chuckles before you rushed towards your car for spare clothes.

─────── · ·

↳ In the next coming weeks, you found your footing once more. Standing behind camera as you recorded little teaser snippets. Quickly edited some pictures for the instagram team and sent off your reports all on your tablet.

↳ You enjoyed sitting towards the back, far away from any possible cameras in a dark corner with your water bottle by your feet. Texting the members of your small team through the group chat as you became lost in your own little bubble before the lights were coming back on.

↳ Looking at the time on your device, you quickly stood up and rushed out the room ahead of everyone else. Your social battery was already low from the mornings meetings and made your way back to your desk

↳ A sudden clearing of someones throat had you jumping out of your chair as Spencer stood at your side water bottle in hand. "You forgot this at set earlier." And placed it on your desk.

"Thank you, Spencer," you said with a smile, doing your best to ignore the way your palms were beginning to sweat and praying that you could go back to your hermit corner.

He offered you a smile in return before exiting the space and back towards his own desk as you slumped in relief. "Tough day?" Courtney asked in a light tone before forcing you towards the lunch table.

─────── · ·

↳ You were growing closer to everyone, making friends with people from other departments and still keeping up with your old co-workers on the weekends. Yet you were still to embarrassed from your first few interactions with Spencer to move your relationship from sharing files or the dreaded small talk.

↳ The audience seemed to be growing to you as well. Somehow your little murmurs to yourself had gotten picked up on the microphone and used in the final edit. When watching with Courtney the most recent episode of TNTL, you were surprised to find that it was you who made Olivia laugh that hard. You were really rooting yourself to this company.

↳ A few cast members and producers had tried to get you to move closer to the cameras for more of your comments or even get you on set as you shook your head violently and turned down every offer- still preferring to stay in the shadows.

↳ Yet even when doing your best to hide away, Spencer would sneak his way over with a snack or offer to review what clips you decided on for the reel later that day. You felt childish in many ways on how afraid you were to speak with him, using short sentences or nods of your head but he never took them as rude and was in a way, way too understanding that lead you to feel how you do currently.

─────── · ·

↳ You hated everything to do with Spencer. You hated how much he would always check in on everyone and somehow find all your little hiding spots in the office and on set. Hated the way his smile and laugh would make your heart race. Hated the videos he would attach to his emails that he thought you would like, and you did.

↳ You despised how he wouldn't force you to talk, yet he would just sit there with you at lunch or offer to walk you to your car after work. Your heat couldn't say no nor did your co-workers allow you to as Courtney was practically shoving you both out the door without another word.

↳ A few of them even asked if you did in fact have a crush on the Director and by the look on your face and the shake in your hands, they knew the answer all to well.

─────── · ·

↳ You stated to feel indebted for your shyness as you offered Spencer a fresh can of Mountain Dew during lunch or even provided morning pasteries for the both of you. The whole office took note of his smile that day while filming and how you both started to work at one another's desks.

↳ The more time you spent together, the more confident you grew and you thought to be getting over your crush now. You would have your chair closer to the front of the set, Spencer would often stand or sit beside you between breaks- resting his arm on the back of your chair as he would peer over to see whatever was on your tablet.

↳ Rumours spread, you could practically feel the eyes for sure on your back as you walked around the office together. HR had even sent you a few hinting emails that had you flashing back to your first week working at Smosh.

↳ Cameras were picking up on it too. The attention was growing all too much, your feels were growing all too much before you were taking a step back and allowing more opportunities for your team as you took a step back.

↳ Of course, Spencer took notice of this as well. Asking around, and even once during filming where you had gone only to find you put other people to film the clips and take the photos.

─────── · ·

↳ "Are you okay," Spencer asks, bursting into your new office space as you stood up straight from your desk, a smile a bit to wide as you stiffly welcomed him into the space.

↳ He rounded your desk, sitting upon it, concern written in his features with the slightest tilt to his head. You fumbled with your fingers, struggling to come up with words, "Im okay, just taking a break is all- working on other things."

"I'm just worried for you my friend, never mind work. Are YOU, doing okay?" Spencer pressed, knowing that the answer you gave wasn't entirely truthful.

↳ Friend. The word wounded you as you blinked away tears, suddenly feeling ridiculous. You were an adult and yet this stupid crush you had was coming in the way of everything you worked so hard towards.

"Yes. I am doing okay, thank you for checking up on me."

─────── · ·

↳ You hoped that the time apart would help you, only finding yourself hurting more. You fell right back into the schedule you and Spencer developed together and you hated to admit to yourself but you had never felt better.

↳ They were filming who meme'd it? And yours had yet to come up until now. It would be your first seconds fully on camera as everyone cheered you on before hand. The comments from earlier in the week were excited to finally see who you were, that night you had even found a compilation of every time Spencer mentioned you, to your suprise it was over 5 minutes long- or maybe you just watched it a few dozen times.

↳ Nonetheless, your meme was instantly guessed by the man. His eyes immediately found your own from behind the camera as you started to shrink away, slipping down the couch and onto the floor was a blush as he calmly wrote your name. Shayne seeing this laughed, it echoed the room as he and everyone else also knew the answer from your combined reaction.

↳ Everyone else in the office was loving it. You meme'd your first time meeting with poorly drawn MS-Paint visuals and a simple caption and as your name and picture flashed up on the screen. Cheers rung throughout the room as one of your team members gently rubbed your back in reassurance

↳ After gaining back your will to live, you were suprised to find a pair of arms bringing you into a hug. "I am so proud of you, first time on camera!" Spencer spoke into your hair, you could feel his smile as you stood there still in shock before retuning the action.

↳ Not knowing if it was the adrenaline still running after the showing, the physical comfort, or what you thought to be hearing his heart beating as fast as you own, you blurted out to the shock of many others still cleaning up after the shoot- "I like you a lot."

Spencer chuckled, bringing you back into a hug as you hide your face in his neck from the cheers, "I like you a lot too. But please now finish your turn on game pigeon 8-ball."

─────── · ·

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Well, I'm sad to report that earth ships are having a bad year. So many on the market, it looks like the concept has failed, when once they were all the rage. So, here's another one for sale. It was cobbled together in 2002 in Tres Piedras, NM. Has 2bds, 1ba, and looks a little neglected. They're asking $400K, but Zillow thinks it's worth $376K. Let's look around.

It has the standard entrance w/the little garden along the hallway, and the garden is on the small side.

Off to the right is a living room with a round garden separating it from the kitchen.

The kitchen isn't too bad. But, I'd want a bigger fridge so I wouldn't have to keep running to the store.

And, there's a little banquette and built-in table.

This home has a second level, which is something I've never seen in an earth ship. Note the cracked step. There are bottles decorating the stairs and wall.

Curved wall with glass block trim.

Bedroom #1 has a garden. It needs some TLC.

Bd. #2 looks like it was a studio.

And, this is the slightly icky bath. I could never understand how these porous clay things hold water and how you clean them.

Looks like a regular toilet, not a compostable.

These stairs on the exterior lead up to the roof and an outdoor area.

It appears to be larger than what's shown in the photos.

This is also different. I've never seen an earth ship buried under the earth. The lot is 1.28 acres. Smaller than most desert properties.

I don't know anything about this, but it looks smaller and less elaborate than others I've seen.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1-N-Lemuria-Rd-Tres-Piedras-NM-87577/2053053780_zpid/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dow promised to turn sneakers into playground surfaces, then dumped them in Indonesia

Dow Chemicals plastered Singapore with ads for its sneaker recycling program, promising to turn old shoes into playground tracks. But the shoes it collected in its “recycling” bins were illegally dumped in Indonesia. This isn’t an aberration: it’s how nearly all plastic recycling has always worked.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/career-criminals/#fool-me-twice-three-times-four-times-a-hundred-times

Plastic recycling’s origin story starts in 1973, when Exxon’s scientists concluded that plastic recycling would never, ever be cost-effective (#ExxonKnew about this, too). Exxon sprang into action: they popularized the recycling circular arrow logo and backed “anti-littering” campaigns that blamed the rising tide of immortal, toxic garbage on peoples’ laziness.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/14/they-knew/#doing-it-again

Remember the campaign where an Italian guy dressed like a Native American shed a single tear as he contemplated plastic litter? Funded by the plastic industry, as a way of shifting blame for plastic waste from the wealthy, powerful corporations who lied about plastics recycling to the individuals who believed their lies:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html

When I was a kid in Ontario, we had centralized, regulated, reusable bottle depots — beer and soda bottles came in standard sizes, differentiated by paper labels that could be pressure-washed off. When you were done with your bottle, you returned it for a deposit and it got washed and returned to bottlers to be refilled again and again and again.

After intense lobbying from soda companies, brewers and the plastic industry, that program was replaced with curbside “blue boxes” that promised to recycle our plastic waste. 90% of the plastics created has never been — and will never be — recycled. Today, the plastic industry plans on tripling the amount of single-use plastic in use worldwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

You know those ads from companies like Bluetriton (formerly “Nestle Waters”) that promise that your single-use plastic bottles are “100% recyclable…and can be used for new bottles and all sorts of new, reusable things?”

Bluetriton is a private equity-backed rollup that has absorbed most of the bottled water companies you’re familiar with, including Poland Spring, Pure Life, Splash, Ozarka, and Arrowhead. When they were sued in DC for making false claims about their “recyclable” water-bottles, their defense was that these were “non-actionable puffery.” According to Bluetriton, when it described itself as “a guardian of sustainable resources” and “a company who, at its core, cares about water,” it was being “vague and hyperbolic.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

With this high standard for plastic recycling, Dow’s Singapore scam shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it seems to have surprised the government of Singapore. Writing for Reuters, Joe Brock, Yuddy Cahya Budiman and Joseph Campbell describe how they caught Dow red-handed:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-plastic-dow-shoes/

The method is actually pretty straightforward: Reuters hid tracking devices in cavities in the soles of sneakers, dropped them in one of Dow’s collection bins, and then followed them. The shoes were passed onto Dow’s subcontractor, Yok Impex Pte Ltd, who sent them hopping from island to island throughout Indonesia, until they ended up in junk-markets.

Not all the shoes, though — one pair was simply moved from Dow’s collection bin to a donation bin at a Singaporean community center. Of the 11 pairs that Reuters tracked, not one ended up at a recycling facility. So much for Dow’s slogan: “Others see an old shoe. We see the future.”

Dow blamed all this on Yok Impex, but didn’t explain why its “recycling” program involved a company whose sole trade is exporting used clothing. Dow promised to cancel its deal with Yok Impex, but Yok Impex’s accountant told Reuters that the deal would be remain in place until the end of the contract. Yok Impex, meanwhile, shifted the blame to the low-waged women who sort through the clothing donations it takes in from across Singapore.

Indonesia bans bulk imports of used clothes, on the grounds that used clothes are unhygenic, displace the local textiles industry, and shipments contain high volumes of waste that ends up in Indonesian incinerators, landfills and rivers.

In other words, Singaporeans thought they were saving the planet by putting their shoes in Dow bins, but they were really sending those shoes on a long journey to an unlicensed dump. Dow enlisted schoolchildren in used-shoe collection drives, making upbeat videos that featured students like Zhang Youjia boasting that they “contributed 15 pairs of shoes.”

Dow does this all the time. In 2021, Dow’s “breakthrough technology to turn plastic waste into clean fuel” in Idaho was revealed to be a plain old incinerator:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/

Also in 2021, in India, a Dow program to “use high-tech machinery to transform the [plastic from the Ganges] into clean fuel” was revealed to have ceased operations — but was still collecting plastic and promising that it was all being turned into fuel:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-plastic-insight-idUSKBN29N024

Dow operates a nearly identical “shoe recycling” program in neighboring Malaysia, and did not return Reuters’ requests for comment as to whether the shoes collected for “recycling” in the far more populous nation were also being illegally dumped offshore.

The global business lobby loves the idea of “personal responsibility” and its evil twin, “caveat emptor.” Its pet economists worship the idea of “revealed preferences,” claiming that when we use plastic, we may claim that we don’t want to have our bodies poisoned with immortal, toxic microplastics, that we don’t want our land and waters despoiled — but we actually love it, because otherwise we’d “vote with our wallets” for something else.

The obvious advantage of telling people to vote with their wallets is that the less money you have in your wallet, the fewer votes you get. Companies like Dow have used their access to the capital markets (a fancy phrase for “rich people”) to gobble up their competitors, eliminating “wasteful competition” and piling up massive profits. Those profits are laundered into policy — like replacing Ontario’s zero-waste refillable bottle system with a “recycling” system that sent plastics to the ends of the Earth to be set on fire or buried or dumped in the sea.

The ruling class’s pet economists have a name for this policy laundering: they call it “regulatory capture.” Now, when you hear “regulatory capture,” you might think about companies that get so big that they are able to boss governments around, with the obvious answer that companies need to be regulated before they get too big to jail:

https://doctorow.medium.com/small-government-fd5870a9462e

But that’s not how elite economists talk about regulatory capture: for them, capture starts with the very existence of regulators. For them, any government agency that proposes to protect the public from corporate fraud and murder inevitably becomes an agent of the corporations it is supposed to rein in, so the only answer is to eliminate regulators altogether:

https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526

This nihilism lets rich people blame the rest of us for their sins: “if you didn’t want your children to roast or freeze to death in the climate emergency, you should have sold your car and used the subway (that we bribed your city not to build).”

Nihilism is contagious. Think of the music industry: before Napster, 80% of the music ever recorded was not for sale, banished to the scrapheap of history and the vaults of record companies who paid farcically low sums to their artists.

During the File Sharing Wars, listeners were excoriated for failing to pay for music — much of which wasn’t for sale in the first place. But today, fans overwhelmingly pay for Spotify, a streaming service that notoriously pays musicians infinitesimal sums for their work.

Spotify is a creature of the Big Three labels — Sony, Universal and Warner — who own 70% of all the world’s recorded music copyrights and 65% of all the world’s music publishing. The rock-bottom per-stream prices that Spotify pays were set by the Big Three. Why would the labels want less money from Spotify?

Simple: as co-owners of Spotify, they make more money when Spotify pays less for music. Musicians have a claim on the money they take out of Spotify as royalties — but dividends, buybacks and capital gains from Spotify are the labels’ to use as they see fit. They can share that bounty with some artists, all artists, or no artists.

Not only that, but the Big Three’s deal with Spotify includes a “most favored nation” clause, which means that the independent artists who aren’t under Sony/UMG/Warner’s thumb have to take the rock-bottom rate the Big Three insisted on — likewise the small labels who compete with the Big Three. The difference is that none of these artists and small labels have massive portfolios of Spotify stock, nor do they get free advertising on Spotify, or free inclusion on hot Spotify playlists, or monthly minimum payouts from Spotify.

The idea that we shop at the wrong kind of monopolist in the wrong way is a recipe for absolute despair. It doesn’t matter whether you listen to music with the Big Tech-owned monopoly service (Youtube) or the Big Content-owned monopoly service (Spotify). The money you hand over to these giant companies goes to artists the same way that the sneakers you put in a Dow collection bin goes to a recycling plant.

Think of the billions of human labor hours we all spent washing and sorting our plastics for a recycling program that didn’t exist and will never exist — imagine if we’d spent that time and energy demanding that our politicians hold petrochemical companies to account instead.

At the end of Break ’Em Up, Zephyr Teachout’s outstanding 2020 book on monopolies, Teachout has some choice words for “consumerism” as a theory of change. She writes that if you’re on your way to a protest against a new Amazon warehouse but you never make it because you waste too much time looking for a mom-and-pop stationers to sell you a marker to write your protest sign, Amazon wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

The problem isn’t that you shop the wrong way. Yes, by all means, support the creators and producers you care about in the way that they prefer, but keep your eye on the prize. Structural problems don’t have individual solutions. The problem isn’t that you have chosen single-use plastics — it’s that in our world everything for sale is packaged in single-use plastics. The problem isn’t that you’ve bought a subscription to the wrong music streaming service — it’s that labels have been allowed to buy all their competitors, creators’ unions have been smashed and degraded, and giant accounting scams by big companies generate minuscule fines.

The good news is that after 40 years of despair inducing regulatory nihilism and “vote with your wallet” talk, we’re finally paying attention to systemic problems, with a new generation of trustbusting radicals working around the world to end corporate impunity.

Dow is a repeat offender. A repeat, repeat offender. Chrissakes, they’re the linear descendants of Union Carbide, the company that poisoned Bhopal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

They shouldn’t be trusted to run a lemonade stand, let alone a “recycling” program. The same goes for Big Tech and Big Content company and the markets for creative labor. These companies have repeatedly demonstrated their unfitness, their habitual deception and immorality. These companies have captured their regulators, repeatedly, so we need better regulators — and weaker companies.

The thing I love about Teachout’s book is that it talks about what we should be demanding from our governments — it’s a manifesto for a movement against corporate power, not a movement for “responsible consumerism.” That was the template that Rebecca Giblin and I followed when we wrote Chokepoint Capitalism, our book about the brutal, corrupt creative labor market:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

We have a chapter on Spotify (multiple chapters, in fact!). For our audiobook, we made that chapter a “Spotify Exclusive” — it’s the only part of the book you can get on Spotify, and it’s free:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

Next Thu (Mar 2) I’ll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who’s-who of European and US trustbusters. It’s livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free. On Fri (Mar 3), I’ll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival.

[Image ID: A woman kneeling to tie her running shoe. She stands on a background of plastic waste. In the top right corner is the logo for Dow chemicals. Below it is the Dow slogan, 'Others see an old shoe. We see the future.']

[zoesblogsposts]

o 625 words to know in your target language o

There is a really interesting blog called "Fluent Forever" that aids foreign language learners in tricks, tips and techniques to guide them to achieving fluency "quickly" and efficiently. One of the tricks is to learn these 625 vocab words in your target language, that way you have a basis to start delving into grammar with ease as you can understand a lot of vocab right off the bat. Plus this list of words are common across the world and will aid you in whatever language you are learning. Here is the list in thematic order

• Animal: dog, cat, fish, bird, cow, pig, mouse, horse, wing, animal

• Transportation: train, plane, car, truck, bicycle, bus, boat, ship, tire, gasoline, engine, (train) ticket, transportation

• Location: city, house, apartment, street/road, airport, train station, bridge hotel, restaurant, farm, court, school, office, room, town, university, club, bar, park, camp, store/shop, theater, library, hospital, church, market, country (USA,

France, etc.), building, ground, space (outer space), bank, location

• Clothing: hat, dress, suit, skirt, shirt, T-shirt, pants, shoes, pocket, coat, stain, clothing

• Color: red, green, blue (light/dark), yellow, brown, pink, orange, black, white, gray, color

• People: son, daughter, mother, father, parent (= mother/father), baby, man, woman, brother, sister, family, grandfather, grandmother, husband, wife, king, queen, president, neighbor, boy, girl, child (= boy/girl), adult (= man/woman), human (# animal), friend (Add a friend's name), victim, player, fan, crowd, person

• Job: Teacher, student, lawyer, doctor, patient, waiter, secretary, priest, police, army, soldier, artist, author, manager, reporter, actor, job

• Society: religion, heaven, hell, death, medicine, money, dollar, bill, marriage, wedding, team, race (ethnicity), sex (the act), sex (gender), murder, prison, technology, energy, war, peace, attack, election, magazine, newspaper, poison, gun, sport, race (sport), exercise, ball, game, price, contract, drug, sign, science, God

• Art. band, song, instrument (musical), music, movie, art

• Beverages: coffee, tea, wine, beer, juice, water, milk, beverage

• Food: egg, cheese, bread, soup, cake, chicken, pork, beef, apple, banana orange, lemon, corn, rice, oil, seed, knife, spoon, fork, plate, cup, breakfast, lunch, dinner, sugar, salt, bottle, food

• Home: table, chair, bed, dream, window, door, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, pencil, pen, photograph, soap, book, page, key, paint, letter, note, wall, paper, floor, ceiling, roof, pool, lock, telephone, garden, yard, needle, bag, box, gift, card, ring, tool

• Electronics: clock, lamp, fan, cell phone, network, computer, program (computer), laptop, screen, camera, television, radio

• Body: head, neck, face, beard, hair, eye, mouth, lip, nose, tooth, ear, tear (drop), tongue, back, toe, finger, foot, hand, leg, arm, shoulder, heart, blood, brain, knee, sweat, disease, bone, voice, skin, body

• Nature: sea, ocean, river, mountain, rain, snow, tree, sun, moon, world, Earth, forest, sky, plant, wind, soil/earth, flower, valley, root, lake, star, grass, leaf, air, sand, beach, wave, fire, ice, island, hill, heat, nature

• Materials: glass, metal, plastic, wood, stone, diamond, clay, dust, gold, copper, silver, material

• Math/Measurements: meter, centimeter, kilogram, inch, foot, pound, half, circle, square, temperature, date, weight, edge, corner

• Misc Nouns: map, dot, consonant, vowel, light, sound, yes, no, piece, pain, injury, hole, image, pattern, noun, verb, adjective

• Directions: top, bottom, side, front, back, outside, inside, up, down, left, right, straight, north, south, east, west, direction

• Seasons: Summer, Spring, Winter, Fall, season

• Numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 30, 31, 32, 40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52, 60, 61, 62, 70, 71, 72, 80, 81, 82, 90, 91, 92, 100, 101, 102, 110, 111, 1000, 1001, 10000, 100000, million, billion, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, number

• Months: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

• Time: year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, morning, afternoon, evening, night, time

• Verbs: work, play, walk, run, drive, fly, swim, go, stop, follow, think, speak/say, eat, drink, kill, die, smile, laugh, cry, buy, pay, sell, shoot(a gun), learn, jump, smell, hear (a sound), listen (music), taste, touch, see (a bird), watch (TV), kiss, burn, melt, dig, explode, sit, stand, love, pass by, cut, fight, lie down, dance, sleep, wake up, sing, count, marry, pray, win, lose, mix/stir, bend, wash, cook, open, close, write, call, turn, build, teach, grow, draw, feed, catch, throw, clean, find, fall, push, pull, carry, break, wear, hang, shake, sign, beat, lift

• Adjectives: long, short (long), tall, short (vs tall), wide, narrow, big/large, small/little, slow, fast, hot, cold, warm, cool, new, old (new), young, old (young), weak, dead, alive, heavy, light (heavy), dark, light (dark), nuclear, famous

[priyankap0018]

Exploring the Essence of Global Maple and Birch Waters

The bottled water industry, a thriving sector in beverage manufacturing, meets the growing demand for convenient hydration. With diverse offerings and eco-friendly initiatives, the bottled water industry ensures access to purified and refreshing water. Explore the innovations and sustainability practices that define this dynamic sector, shaping consumer choices worldwide.

[marketsndata]

Japan Bottled Water Market Analysis 2031

Japan Bottled Water Market presents a compelling landscape marked by a confluence of factors that drive its growth and evolution. The rapid expansion of the market can be attributed to the flourishing tourism sector and a growing awareness among consumers regarding its health advantages. Furthermore, the market’s growth is propelled by the introduction of numerous bottled water brands that provide a range of flavors and appealing packaging.

The market size was estimated at USD 4.7 billion in FY2023 and is anticipated to reach USD 6.7 billion by FY2031, witnessing a CAGR of 4.6% during the forecast period FY2024-2031. An additional factor propelling the market is the robust representation of both global and domestic brands, providing consumers with a diverse range of options to cater to various preferences and requirements. Innovations in packaging, such as eco-friendly and biodegradable options, are also attracting environmentally conscious consumers. Japan’s unique geographical landscape, prone to natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis, has led to a heightened awareness of emergency preparedness. As a result, there is a growing trend to stockpile bottled water for emergencies, further boosting the market. The flourishing tourism sector in the country significantly contributes to the demand for bottled water. Tourists frequently opt for bottled water as a precautionary measure, given the unfamiliarity with the quality of local tap water, thereby boosting its demand. The development of unique flavours and types of bottled water catering specifically to tourists, further drives sales.

Besides this, technological advancements in water purification and bottling processes ensure a high standard of water quality and safety. The increased trust in these processes has led to consumer confidence in bottled water products, bolstering the market’s growth. In alignment with this, stringent government regulations and industry standards in Japan ensure the quality and safety of bottled water. This fosters trust among consumers and stimulates growth in the market. Moreover, Japan’s widespread distribution channels, including convenience stores, supermarkets, and vending machines, guarantee convenient access to bottled water for consumers nationwide. This accessibility profoundly influences market demand. Factors such as technological advancements and inventive marketing strategies also propel the market.

Upsurge in Advertising and Marketing Expenditure Propelling the Market Growth

Japan Bottled Water Market is experiencing accelerated growth, primarily fuelled by a notable upsurge in advertising and marketing expenditure. Key industry players, including giants like Suntory Holdings Limited and Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Holdings Inc., strategically invest in promotional activities to enhance brand visibility and consumer engagement. This heightened focus on marketing initiatives drives product awareness and influences purchasing decisions. As consumer preferences evolve, the industry’s dynamic response through increased advertising spending positions it for sustained growth, solidifying bottled water’s status as a preferred beverage choice in the Japanese market.

In November 2022, Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd., a leading Japanese beer brewer, introduced warmed-up mineral water named Oishi Mizu Tennensui Sayu. Though lacking unique flavours, the hot beverage aimed to provide consumers with a caffeine-free option for body warmth. The drink was heated to around 50°C to 60°C, claimed by Asahi as the “optimum temperature for hot water”.

Rising Health Consciousness Driving the Demand for Mineral Water

In Japan, tap water is known for its safety and is considered suitable for direct consumption, making the daily purchase of bottled water unnecessary for many. Despite this, there is a noticeable uptrend in the sales of bottled mineral water. This rise can be attributed to an increasing consciousness about health among the population, prompting a growing number of individuals to opt for bottled mineral water as a choice for hydration, even in a nation where tap water is considered reliably safe. The surge in health awareness has become a significant factor influencing the preferences and purchasing behaviours of consumers in Japan. In August 2022, Kosme, a health and beauty products group with offices in Jakarta and Surabaya, introduced a new bottled mineral water named Jiwater in Indonesia and Japan. Jiwater was produced utilizing cutting-edge mineral water processing technology from Japan, ensuring a pH level between 7.5 and 8, considered optimal for maintaining good health.

Market Growth Being Restrained by Pollution Caused by Disposable Plastic Bottles

The market faces a pressing issue with environmental pollution stemming from the widespread use of single-use plastic bottles. The market’s reliance on these bottles has contributed significantly to plastic pollution, raising environmental concerns. The annual production of plastic bottles in Japan has surged significantly, reaching an astonishing 23.2 billion from 14 billion in 2004. Despite the nation’s advanced recycling technology, roughly 2.6 billion bottles are either incinerated, disposed in landfills, or end up in waterways and oceans each year. Recognizing this environmental impact, there is a growing call for sustainable packaging alternatives and eco-friendly initiatives within the industry. As awareness about environmental conservation increases among consumers, the market is witnessing a shift towards sustainable practices, with the industry under pressure to adopt eco-friendly alternatives and reduce its ecological footprint. This shift is not only crucial for environmental sustainability but also aligns with changing consumer expectations for responsible and environmentally conscious products.

Impact of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic initially disrupted the Japan Bottled Water Market, causing shifts in consumer habits and supply chain interruptions. With lockdowns impacting on-the-go lifestyles, demand was temporarily dipped, especially in certain channels. However, as health consciousness surged, bottled water became a safe hydration option. Trusted brands emphasizing purity flourished, and e-commerce saw a notable uptick in sales due to contactless shopping preferences. Despite short-term challenges, the market showcased resilience, adapting to changing consumer needs and leveraging online platforms. The pandemic underscored the importance of bottled water, aligning with heightened health and safety priorities.

Download Free Sample Report

Japan Bottled Water Market: Report Scope

“Japan Bottled Water Market Assessment, Opportunities, and Forecast, FY2017-FY2031F”, is a comprehensive report by Markets and Data, providing in-depth analysis and assessment of the current scenario of the bottled water market in Japan, industry dynamics and opportunities, and forecasts (FY2024-FY2031). Additionally, the report profiles the leading players in the industry mentioning their respective market share, business model, competitive intelligence, etc. 

Click here for full report- https://www.marketsandata.com/industry-reports/japan-bottled-water-market

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Contact

Mr. Vivek Gupta 5741 Cleveland street, Suite 120, VA beach, VA, USA 23462 Tel: +1 (757) 343–3258 Email: info@marketsandata.com Website: https://www.marketsandata.com

[defira85]

Having to tidy up our feral wasteland of a backyard that we have let run wild for a few years (me working full time with chronic health issues equals no energy to garden, Mr Defira working full time plus to keep our head above water with bills and doing 75% of the household chores to look after me equals no time to garden) because dog adoption here is insanely competitive and the standards for house and garden maintenance are going to make me cry

In the back corner it has come to my attention that my fuckhead neighbours have been throwing beer bottles, shot glasses, laundry AND FUCKING CIGARETTE BUTTS INTO OUR GARDEN

I REEK FROM TRYING TO SORT THROW THE FUCKING LEAF LITTER WHICH THEY COULD HAVE SET ON FUCKING FIRE TRYING TO GET THE LITERAL HUNDREDS OF CIGARETTE BUTTS

I'm trying to pass the world's shittiest exam just to get a dog that isn't selling for three thousand dollars (again, dog market insane here) and if I fail because the dog eats a piece of glass I missed I will be on the news for killing someone

[schemmentisjacket]

Chapter 4 - First Day pt 1

Authors Note: Little something something about non binary queer new teacher coming in, leading to Melissa finding the one.

C:

Alarm blared pulling you from the depth of sleep, throwing on a pair of boxers and a sports bra, you headed from your bedroom into the room down the hall that you had converted into a gym room. 20 minutes of yoga to wake yourself up and relax your muscles, you moved into weights. Today was your first proper day of school with the kids. It was the first day you’d be going in properly dressed in your teaching clothes and a little bit of you really wanted to impress Melissa. It felt like there had been the start of some subtle flirting, especially after the outfit comment on Friday you really wanted to impress her.

You’d dropped her a message about the hockey on Saturday and then exchanged a couple of messages on Sunday when she told you about some great stuff she’d got at a famers market.

You’d also been talking to Jacob about introducing him to one of your friends, Ant.

They were planning to meet up later this week at a cosy gay bar you often frequented.

You snuck in an extra few reps to get a good pump in the biceps and shoulders. It was upper body, but you did a set of squats too. It wouldn’t hurt to add them today as well.

You cooled down with some stretched and rolling before jumping in the shower. The rainfall in the ceiling let the water cascade down your chest and back, skin glistening in the natural light that came through the big windows in the bathroom, the frosted glass to the walk in only hiding your body from the outside, not the light.

You towel dried off and headed into your closet to pick out your outfit for the day, before grabbing a quick breakfast downstairs. Teeth brushed and a quick hit off cologne completed your morning routine. Before you knew it you were out to the car with bag over one shoulder.

Melissa was leant against the hood of her car talking to Barbara as the black Jeep pulled into the carpark, pulling into a bay across from them.

She watched as Charlie stepped out of the car, black leather boots with a silver chain. Tailored black tapered trousers with a subtle check led to a fine knitted sweater in deep navy, a grey shirt collar buttoned poking up from beneath.

A short charcoal wool coat topped off the outfit, accessorised by a smart leather backpack.

Black leather gloves. Always with the gloves. She’d heard Barbra mention it briefly during a chat in prep week, but they’d just said it was ‘poor circulation’ and Barbara hadn’t pushed further.

‘Nice backpack, your first day?’ Melissa heckled over, eying them from head to toe as they walked over, trousers clinging to their thighs showing toned quads. Her brain short circuited briefly imagining how they looked from the back.

‘Yes Ma’am.’ Charlie replied in that low tone, ‘Dr Flinn reporting for duty and looking forward to it.’

‘At ease.’ Melissa laughed, hand falling on their arm, a soft smile on both their faces.

Barbara eyed them again. She had seen Melissa go through a few dates over the years post Joe but never really open up fully to anyone.

They all headed into school together, Charlie said they’d go ahead to drop their backpack off in the classroom and that they’d catch Melissa and Barbara up.

They shucked off their jacket and hung it up on the rack near their desk, set their water bottle on the desk from their backpack before heading to the teachers lounge.

Ask they walked into the room they noticed Melissa looking towards the door, her face lighting up seeing them, before a light blush came across her cheeks. Without their jacket on she could see way their jumper hugged their shoulders and arms, god they looked so strong. The way their bicep flexed as they lifted the coffee pot. They were still using her cup she’d said they should keep it for now, she didn’t want to ‘fight them with those guns’.

The way they threw an arm around Jacob giving him a side hug as he came into the room, immediately jumping into a conversation. God they looked so strong. What if they just took her by the waist, pulled her against their chest, peeled off their gloves and ran a hand across her jaw and into her hair. Brought her closer. Their breath mingling…

The trill of the bell broke her from the daydream.

(Below are a few scenarios I want to share between the two characters. All of them will happen but which should I use for the reveal of whats beneath their clothes.

A. There is an accident and they remove their jumper revealing themselves to Melissa (potential for this to be hidden from other characters for now) as they care for her. Also leads to Melissa visiting their house.

OR

B. When Jacob and Ant go on their date Charlie is there doing a side gig, Jacob messages Melissa and other teachers (or just melissa) and again a reveal happens. Again potentially just melissa and Jacob could know for now.

Also Should Jacob and Melissa be living together like in the show?)

[starbabyg]

When In Italy | Jack Hughes Instagram edit

Y/n and Jack take a little spontaneous trip to Italy together. ~<3~

all photos from pinterest and yes all the fc girls look different idc they’re supposed to be you deal with ehttt 🌚

liked by trevorzegras, lhughes_06, and 116,281 others

yourusername: buongiorno sole 🌞

trevorzegras: He gettin that tan alreadyyy 😮

lhughes_06: 3 bottles of water?? Thirsty ass.

user1: he’s so 😍😍😍

_quinnhughes: brt gonna go snatch that chain #icy

— reply to _quinnhughes jackhughes: I’d like to see you try

❦ ❦ ❦

You woke up alone in bed, the sun shining in through the sheer white curtains, a faint breeze blowing them softly. This was unfamiliar, you always woke up before Jack. You got up to look for him, cause where the hell could that boy be? You pondered for a moment before hearing clanging in the kitchen, that clumsy boy, knocking all the pots and pans over.

“What are you doing bub?” You laughed, taking a seat at the table watching him attempt to cook. Jack definitely wasn’t the best chef, but it was cute watching him do his little thing.

“Wellll, I went to that little market shop down the street that was closed when we got here last night. Got some stuff for breakfast, wanted to make you something. It’s kinda hard cause all the cooking instructions are in Italian and I have to translate it. But I did make some toast!” Jack lifted his finger in the air, excited that at least something he made came out good. He put a plate on the table, with a few pieces of buttered toast with different jams on each one.

“This is cute bub,” you smiled, “you’re getting better in the kitchen huh.” Jack laughed at your little poke at him. He was focused on finishing what he had on the stove, which you couldn’t tell what he was doing, he refused to let you see. All you saw were some pots on the stove with him stirring.

“Yeah, yeah. Just a little. But here, I’m almost done. Just gotta do thisss and finished,” he poured a glass bottle full of white sauce into the pot. Jack made two servings, setting them at the table for the two of you to enjoy. He opened up the curtains to the kitchen windows, letting the two of you see the marvelous view of the cityscape below. “Ravioli a la Jack style, bon appetito.”

❦ ❦ ❦

liked by elblue06, jackhughes, and 109,034 others

yourusername: amore mio @ jackhughes

jackhughes: mia bellaaaa ❤️‍🔥

trevorzegras: uglyy

—reply to trevorzegras yourusername: funkyy

elblue06: my lovies 🤍

—reply to elblue06 yourusername: love you miss el 🫶🏽

lhughes_06: okayyy stink!!

—reply to lhughes_06 yourusername: I look guud huh stinka ;)

liked by _quinnhughes, lhughes_06, and 102,662 others

yourusername: vampires in the lemon grove 🍋

_quinnhughes: tuh totally stole caption from our book club

— reply to _quinnhughes yourusername: don’t worry boobie it’s still our thing don’t be madd

lhughes_06: awe so cutee *reports post*

—reply to lhughes_06 yourusername: waah *don’t care didn’t ask* :]

—— reply to yourusername lhughes_06: touché, y/n, touché

liked by yourusername, _quinnhughes, and 262,019 others

jackhughes: bonjour, or whatever hi is in Italian

yourusername: close bubby, so close

_quinnhughes: ur dumb

—reply to _quinnhughes jackhughes: ur dumber

liked by lhughes_06, trevorzegras, yourusername, and 207,776 others

jackhughes: so apparently fettuccine Alfredo isn’t a real thing out here?? Anyways here’s my baby looking guud

lhughes_06: wow @ yourusername you just let him steal our lingo like thatt

—reply to lhughes_06 yourusername: it’s not like that stink I swear 😩

—— reply to yourusername lhughes_06: then what is it like huh 🤨

trevorzegras: so uncultured, hughes, so uncultured 🤌🏻

—reply to trevorzegras jackhughes: ya mama.

liked by jackhughes, _quinnhughes, and 113,572 others

yourusername: hey mona lisa, come home you know you can’t rome without cesar

jackhughes: my favorite picture of us from the trip 🫶🏻

_quinnhughes: waitt who took the picture??!?!

liked by yourusername and 198,442 others

jackhughes: flashing lights - kanye 💫

yourusername: omgg always stealing my captions you boob!!

—reply to yourusername jackhughes: haha snatchedd

_quinnhughes: again who tf is taking these pictures????

[kervl-klear]

💥 For Yuseong

💥 - A witch has turned your OC into a militaristic vehicle. What vehicle would that be?

…………………………………………………

Huchu and Yuseong sneaked into a mysterious storage in the middle of nowhere. There were a raised of terrorism on the eastern part of nation C and C2ISTAR was hired to find out where did these terrorists get money to fund their activities. Angae’s sleeper reported that the group is self sustained through some form of business and Noeu found some traces of underground transactions on private water vessel in the high sea which Beagcha confirmed to be a common practice between illegal goods dealers.

Orenji had identified the location of congest activities through surveillance by air and Seoltang analyzed the photos. They found that there’s one particular isolated storage clearly under a camouflage attempts with interesting security measures and so the scientists duo are dispatched to identified the chemical compounds hidden in that storage.

Huchu and Yuseong are now inside, it’s full of cardboard boxes stacked upon each other. Huchu swiftly cut one of the boxes open to take a look, a bunch of brown glass bottles are arranged inside but what caught Huchu’s attention is their caps.

Huchu: “It’s cough syrups”

Yuseong: “But if this is what they sold, why be so secretive and suspicious?”

Huchu: “Probably because they are not selling these for medical use, to simplified; cough is a respond to an irritation in your throat where the brain tells muscles in your chest to push the air out of your lungs. This resulted from the stimulated nerves sending a message to your brain and cough syrup suppressed that function”

Yuseong: “Wait, so all allergy pills directly suppress your nerves system?”

Yuseong frowned at the horrifying implication toward the current allergy treatment and how many MDD patient have history of allergy pills usage due to some form of chronic allergy but then he beam other sunny smile.

Yuseong: “That’s so cool!”

Huchu doesn’t know what to make of Yuseong’s reaction.

Huchu: “Yeah…..we call them antihistamines. When mixed with the right NSAID in the right amount, you can creat a handmade drug that are a lot cheaper than heroin or amphetamine”

Huchu prays that this will not give Yuseong any weird ide-

Yuseong: “That gives me an idea”

Huchu sighed, now he has to ask Seoltang to kindly re-indoctrinate Yuseong again.

Huchu: “Yuseong, NO”

Yuseong: “But-But a food that prevented body from getting Ghrelin is really interesting, it could be use as a cure for some case of obesity and eating disorders! We can get a funds for this research by advertising to the executives that these are food that make soldiers unable to feel hungry no matter how little nutrition they have, it will sell well and all we need are antihistamine that bind to H-2 receptors-“

Before Yuseong could accidentally invent other market of people’s right violation. They hear a sound of shatter glass followed by a small thud, like someone had collapsed. They took a second to quickly check on each other before deciding the next move; should they move toward or away from the sound?

The scientists duo are way too curious to considered their options and just immediately go to checkout where the sound came from because SCIENCE.

They found one of the terrorists collapse on the ground alone next to one of the open box and a shattered cough syrup bottle, no blood, no injuries.

Despite the risk, Huchu reach out to check on this terrorist. Looking at the skin beneath his fur, it’s somewhat yellow. Indicating that his liver has difficulty functioning, the heart is okay and the breathing is normal. Huchu dig into the terrorist’s pocket to check if he has chronic illness or is taking any medication which he found a small package of Naproxen. This lead to Huchu checking the terrorist pupils which appear to be expanded, having a theory in his mind he lean in and smell the leftover substance in terrorist’s mouth to confirm his diagnosis.

Huchu: “It’s a case of overdose. Unlike Ibuprofen, Naproxen last longer in your blood so it is harder for your body to clean it off and so it is easier to get an overdose once diluted in cough syrup that are designed to be easily absorbed”

Huchu slowly inserted a tube through his patient’s throat, careful to not trigger a gag reflex. Through it, he feed terrorist some activated charcoal to absorb as much Naproxen and Dextromethorphan as possible.

Huchu reach into his pocket for Acetylcysteine, but he found that the bottle is empty. It appears he accidentally took a used bottle with him…either that or Angae wasn’t seeing correctly when he help Huchu pack the supplies.

Huchu: "He needs a liver transplant, I will let him borrow my liver for a bit. Let’s see if his body is compatible with mine"

Huchu unbutton his uniform, prepare to open his skin and dug a tube into his Portal vein and Hepatic artery but Yuseong stop him.

Yuseong: "No! You already trade your liver and kidneys off a couple of times this year not counting when you replace the broken blood-pumpimg machine with your heart! You can’t always resort to these kind of method!"

Yuseong shakingly squeeze Huchu's hand but then suddenly, Yuseong lighten up and he wags his tail somewhat excitingly. Huchu is clearly startled by the sudden shift of expression.

Yuseong: “You just need Acetylcysteine right? Can you tell me its chemical formula?”

Huchu: “…..C5H9NO3S…..?”

Yuseong: “Okay, so it’s Cyclopentyl radical, Nitrate and Sulfur”

Yuseong start to look around. He goes to the open box and took the foam piece that keeps the cough syrup bottles in place. These foam are called polystyrene foam. The blowing agent use for these foam is Pentane which has the chemical formula of C5H12, only a couple of Hydrogen atoms away from Cyclopentyl radical.

Yuseong then took terrorist’s gun on the floor then took a couple of bullet. Sulfur can be found in gunpowder, and lastly Nitrates can be extracted from Potassium nitrate which can also be found in the gunpowder.

Having all main ingredients, Yuseong start constructing his portable miniature chamber. He make this chamber a while back and he always carried it with him, it cannot breakdown every atomic bound at will like the life size one but removing 3 hydrogen atoms and extracting Nitrate from potassium nitrate is not beyond it capabilities.

Although atomic physics is not Huchu’s specialty, he does recognize the procedure to take a while and so injected Beta blocker into his patients to keep his heart BPM as low as it will allows him to live so that Naproxen and Dextromethorphan spread at slower rate.

After a while of breaking some atomic bounds as well as rearranging molecular structure, the liver detoxification chemical is done.

Huchu injected Acetylcysteine into his patients followed by Epinephrine to return his heart BPM to normal rate.

The overdosed person woke up, dazed at first but then jolt up trying to get away from Yuseong like a pilot spotting SAM.

Yuseong on the other hand is smiling brightly. This is the first time anyone he cannot recognize had a specific reaction to him. It gives Yuseong a lot of hope, so much so that his knees are on the floor. May be this overdosed person knows who he was, a first lead to finding his daughter.

Yuseong beam his sunniest smile to the stranger and quickly crawl to him while speaking excitingly.

Yuseong: “Greetings mister, my name is Yuseong! I suspected myself of having one daughter and that I committed arson with the intention of robbery, do tell me if you recognize my name or appearance-“

Ignoring Yuseong, Huchu slowly and carefully approach his patient.

Huchu: “Shhh… it’s okay, I’m here to help. I will not let anyone hurt you…”

The overdosed stranger pointed at Yuseong and yell that a Mobile CBRN laboratory is chasing him.

This prompted Huchu to forcefully grab the overdosed terrorist by his collar and shone some light into his corneas.

Huchu: “Ah, He’s still high. Probably hallucinating but at least he would probably survive now if we leave him alone”

However, Huchu didn’t let go of the guy’s collar.

Huchu: “Right..?”

He look deep into his patient’s eyes….who doesn’t exactly seeing correctly and is slowly slipping away from Huchu’s hand because he’s still high-

Huchu: “You think you can get away and go ingest unhealthy stuff again?? NOT A CHANCE, you are my patient now you hear me?! I didn’t spend-….Yuseong, how long does it take us to treat this guy?”

Yuseong: “……about 2 hours?”

Huchu: “2 HOURS of sweat and effort so I can let you out to die in the outside world like the other soldiers I’ve treated!!”

The terrorist attempted to get away from Huchu who legit is just trying to kidnap the man at this point, but Huchu gripped strength is too strong, and the guy got slap in the face by Huchu.

Huchu: “SToP ResISTINg mEDicAL HeLP”

Guess the ‘I won’t let anyone hurt you’ part didn’t include Huchu himself-

Huchu carried the terrorist over his shoulder.

Huchu: “You will never lay eyes on cough syrup or NSAID ever again! You will live with ALT of 34 U/L, AST of 32 U/L, ALP of 92 U/L, Albumin of 4 g/dL, total protein of 8 g/dL, Bilirubin of 1.0 milligram, GGT of 30 U/L, LD of 175 U/L and PT of 10 seconds until you are 65 at minimum!“

Yuseong pick the rifle on the floor up then approach Huchu.

Yuseong: “Hu, I know you are concerned but wouldn’t it cause problems if they realized that one of them went missing”

Yuseong spoke with nurturing empathy.

Yuseong: “Also if his liver actually manages to reach these values then I think his liver will become a world record statistical anomaly”

Just when they are about to leave, a couple of footsteps can be heard. A big group of terrorists surrounded the duo with guns.

But then the terrorists hold their gun up. They stare at Huchu and Yuseong and oddly that's all they do, no one shoot or charge at neither of them which really confused the scientists duo.

Yuseong: “Wait could it be…”

Yuseong’s light up into the sunniest smile.

Yuseong: “…because we save their comrade..?”

Suddenly their earpiece buzzed and Angae speak through it.

Angae: “Huchu, Yuseong, what’s going on? I got the report from my sleeper about the situation but how did things lead to that?”

Huchu: "It appears they refused to do harm to us because we save one of their friends"

Although he knows that Angae cannot see him, Yuseong still do a little nod while smiling.

Angae went quiet for a second.

Angae: “That doesn’t quite alight with what I received, my agent said there’s a hostage situation in the storage”

Yuseong, Huchu and the overdosed terrorist look at each other then at the other terrorists who surrounded them.

Huchu: “…..Who’s the hostage..?”

Angae: “The leader of this terrorist group?”

Huchu and Yuseong look at the overdosed terrorist who is still a little high.

Angae: “Wait a minute….You two didn’t-“

Huchu furiously stole the rifle from Yuseong and smacked the terrorist leader head with the handle.

Huchu: “YOu SOld tHis ShiT So YoU KnOw iT’s bAD bUt YOu STiLl InGEsT It-”

…………………………………………………

I considered going with YuSAM joke at first but my conscious say no.

Thank you for your patience in the TFC circuit and thank you for tuning into my frequency. 32G1, RWY CLR. 🛫✨

[xiv-wolfram]

Hello - Comic Script

A Realm Reborn - lvl 15

Wolfram performs his envoy duties, kind of. He tries. Let's be proud of him for trying. 👏

Yes, I was listening to Adele.

Wolfram Saga Comics

This is the script for a future comic. Posting for those who don’t want to wait to get the story. Numbers indicate frame number.

Part 1

Wolfram in the Lotus Stand with Kan-E-Senna. Kan-E smiles “You have done the people of Eorzea a fine service this day, and I would not put you to further trouble. I shall see that my reply reaches the Admiral anon.”

Zoomed out shot

Kan-E smiles “I thank you for coming. May the Twelve see you safe to Ul'dah and beyond.” Wolf smiles “Thank you Seedseer. It was nice to see you again.” Thought ‘If only I could find comfort in faith.’

He leaves, walking towards the residential area. Thought ‘Surely this isn't so urgent I can't take a nap.’

Wolf enters his apartment. Looking around smiling “Been a while…”

Zoomed out shot of apartment as Wolf walks to the bed

Wolf laying on bed on his back, smiling “Rhun wasn't kidding about cleaning. This is nice.”

A) Wolf closes his eyes, smiling. B) Wolf opens his eyes, straight face.

A spectral version of his 27 year old self (in sleep clothes) is huddled on the other side of the bed, quietly crying. Whispers “I miss him so much… I ruined everything.”

A) Real Wolf lays on his side, closing his eyes, amused, mutters “Gods was I pathetic.” B) Wolf opens his eyes, annoyed at not being able to sleep. He looks over at -

Spectral Wolf (in conjury robes) standing in the middle of the room yelling at a wand “WORK GODSDAMN YOU! MAKE WIND OR WATER. DO SOMETHING!”

The wand sparks with dark magic, Spectral Wolf looks horrified “Not that! Never again.”

A) Close up ghostly hands grasping the wand B) snaps the wand

Spectral Wolf leaning against wall with head in hand, sobbing “Yes, I know it's not the wand. It's me. You don't have to point it out, arsehole.” “Why can't you just leave me alone?! I had to lie to him because of you.” “Yes I did!”

Real Wolf, sad, sighs “The hellhound sure was loud back then…before I learned to quiet it.”

A) Wolf closes eyes, frowning sadly B) Wolf opens eyes frustrated

Spectral Wolf (half undressed) passed out drunk at the foot of the bed, sitting on floor with head on mattress, liquor bottle rolling out of his hand

Real Wolf walking to the door, exhausted frown “Now I remember why I avoid Gridania. Guess I'd better go face my fears.” “As if fighting a voidsent and passing out in front of Merlwyb wasn't bad enough.”

Part 2

Raubahn holding coffee cup at the table in his apartment (Same apartment from 13 years ago. Almost nothing has changed), using linkshell, smiling “Hopefully these movements mean naught, yet you are wise to stay vigilant. Is there aught else to report?”

Rau leaning back, laughing “Oh gods! No I do not want to meet some farmer in Gridania. I do not care how kind he was.”

Rau leans forward resting is chin on his hand, grinning in amusement “Pray continue to focus on your duties, not matchmaking.” “Aye, I'll speak with you later, Pipin.”

Rau smiling, looking over towards the kitchen but camera focused on him. Thought ‘Ah, the lad means well. He doesn't understand the demands my position places on me.’

Spectral 27 year old Wolfram cooking in the kitchen. Spectral 32 year old Rau standing behind him kissing his cheek.

Real Rau smiles. Thought ‘Odd that I'd think about him right now…’

Rau walking away from the residential area, wearing his armor. Frowning. Thought ‘I wonder how he's doing… if he's alive.’

Walking further, down an alley in Pearl Lane, Rau glances at the corner. Spectral Wolf and Rau kissing.

Raubahn smiles sadly as he passes, turning toward the market. Thought ‘He's got to be alive. If what he went through didn't kill him, nothing would… not even a bloody calamity.’

Part 3

Wolfram standing in the airship area, tucking his flask into his pocket. Nervous smile. Thought ‘Well, I'm back…”

Wolf exiting the elevator, nervous, takes a deep breath. Thought ‘Surely he wouldn't still be upset... right?’ ‘He's so accomplished. A living legend. He couldn't possibly be angry at his ex from over a decade ago…right?’

Wolf walking out into the street. Thought ‘Anyroad, I'm an envoy of the Admiral. Even if he were, he wouldn't have me arrested… right?’

A) Close up of face but he's walking on the main road. Worried look. Thought ‘What if…what if he doesn't even remember me?’ B) Looks hurt and a bit scared.

Wolf walking into the Hall of Flames. An unusually tall blond Viera in a lieutenant uniform is talking to the trader at the desk.

Bran turns as Wolf walks up to him. Wolf addresses him with a big fake smile “You look important. Can you get a message to your General? It's from Merlwyb.”

A) Bran beams brightly “I am! Very important! Well, a lieutenant. I'm important to myself and that's what matters. I’d be happy to deliver it to him for you.” B) Wolf smiles awkwardly ”Uh, thanks.” Thought ‘This guy sure has pep... I have to get out of here.’

Raubahn walks in as Wolf disappears in a concealing cloud of aether. Rau surprised.

A) Close up shot. Rau looks left. B) Rau looks right.

Rau amused “I must assume we were just robbed?” Bran laughs, walking over to him “No, don't worry. It was just an odd and unnecessarily attractive envoy. They had a message for you from Admiral Bloefhiswyn.”

A) Rau chuckles, taking the message “Ah, so I trust you scared them off with an unexpected advance?” B) Bran shrugs “I'd like to take the credit, yet they seemed a bit on edge already. Hopefully that doesn't indicate a gloomy message.”

Rau straight face “Aye, our city is still recovering. I trust if it were urgent she would have called my linkshell.” Bran smiles “Oh, surely nothing like that. Everything will work out. Always does.” Rau “I pray you're correct. I'll open it with Eline. Stop by my office later, Lieutenant Thorvald.”

Wolfram Saga Comics

[catdotjpeg]

Thousands of families in the Gaza Strip are barely finding enough food to cook a meal for their children as Israel’s military aggression and aid blockade continue for the 150th day. At least a quarter of Gaza’s population is just a step away from famine, with already reported deaths of babies and children in homes and hospitals.  Prices of the little fruits and vegetables available on the market have soared, and non-essential products such as coffee have skyrocketed, with one kilogram sold at $100 (360 shekels). The most expensive cup of coffee is now to be found, not in Paris or the Maldives, but in Gaza, according to a Palestinian on TikTok who invited two of his friends over coffee to thank them for standing beside him as his injured leg healed. Coffee was not included in the few tons of aid the U.S. airdropped over north Gaza in a joint operation with the Jordanian air force over the weekend.

Palestinians in Gaza felt “humiliated” by the way aid was delivered, following weeks of Israeli bombs being dropped on their heads from the sky, one of them told Al-Akhbar newspaper’s correspondent in Gaza. When Jordan planes airdropped aid last week over north Gaza, thousands of Palestinians in the Jabalia refugee camp anticipated that the parachuted crates would land in their territory. However, the wind blew them west near the coast and above the sea, where some landed in the water. Palestinians walked for nearly three kilometers to arrive at the coast, only to find people had already unloaded the wooden crates, each had thirty meals with a bag of flour, rice, dates, one water bottle, a can of baby formula, cooking oil, several pasta wrappers, and sanitary pads. “[Airdropping aid] is useless,” Ibrahim, a resident from Jabalia told Al-Akhbar, “I ran five kilometers [to Gaza’s coast], but I couldn’t get anything. People fought each other to get a bag of dates or a kilogram of rice.” He added with pride that Palestinians in Gaza “have never been hungry or beggars, for you to insult our dignity in this way.”

-- From "‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 150" by Mustafa Abu Sneineh for Mondoweiss, 4 Mar 2024