Removing grease from brushes, sponges and clothes

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Randomnerd

Bimbleur
Location
North Yorkshire
"Now hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face with mild green Fairy Liquid"

Wash all my bikes and cars with Fairy and always have done. As long as it is all gently and thoroughly rinsed away afterwards it is good at the job. Utensils used to clean the drive train components will get mucky so ideally keep clean ones for the clean bits and the grubby ones for the oily parts.

If you’re being serious about nature, you shouldn’t be using phosphates at all. Fairy has them, and they speed algal growth in watercourses leading to oxygen decay and poor plant diversity.

It’s you who’s killing the planet, too.

If you’re joking, you’re not particularly good at it.
 

Tim Hall

Guest
Location
Crawley
[QUOTE 5210585, member: 9609"]
And whatever ever type of degreaser he is soaking the cassette with, some of that will make its way into the wheel bearing, then once that grease is contaminated and degraded it will be new wheel time.[/QUOTE]A new wheel might be a bit extreme. Couldn't you just replace the grease?
 
Swarfega hand cleanser is essential. It works on dry grease before you wash with water. Use on clothes, carpets etc, apply with old toothbrush, work into grease, wash out with water and soap or detergent.
 
Regarding enviromentalism ideology and cycling, I had an interesting conversation about the topic of waste and cycling with a hippy colleague about what we do with it. Well, it turns out both of us send most of it to landfill (except the stuff that can't be melted down at least). It turns out that cycling and enviromentalism are distinctly at odds. Bicycles and all the toxic nasty stuff that makes them come together to and work are products of the industrial machine, for those that didn't get the memo, industrial civilisation as a means of production and propagation and supply of useful resources itself isn't sustainable, cycle if you like, use synthetic oils and degreasers if you like, but don't kid yourself. No aspect of cycling in it's current form as enjoyed by the hoi polloi is truly environmentally friendly, a lesser of many evils perhaps, certainly better than the highly inappropriate tyranny of the single occupancy motor on the congested road of a sprawling never-ending megalopolis, but truly sustainable, cycling is not.

I suppose I better qualify what I mean by sustainable, well, I certainly don't mean a feel good factor that you are doing your bit for the environment by saying no to the car a few days a week, that's just typical marketing hype that doesn't really challenge the notion of what being 'green' really means. I mean sustainable as in the likelihood that something can go on indefinitely, which of course is impossible on this planet because we eventually will be burnt to a crisp as our sun goes super nova. I suspect it's likely we will have gone extinct long by then anway, which reminds me, Elon Musk still hasn't delivered my ticket to Mars. Never mind, but good news, he used a sheet tonne of fossil fuel to launch my preordered Tesla into space after I complained about the lead time. Sustainability is something that is fiercely disputed in green circles, on the one hand, you have the techno-optimists that tell you if we switch to solar and wind we can produce and manufacture X metal alloys and Z chemicals indefinitely until the proverbial cows come home with no negative consequences, and then you have the doomers who are waiting for oil to run out, or the bottom to fall out of the environment as those two drops of white spirit you thought would be harmless killed the last surviving queen bee, then we all died because there were no pollinators left... why did no one heed their warnings! I personally fall part way between the two ends of the spectrum, learning a little to the doom side, but no doubt I'll get some abuse from the techno-progressives for sharing my views, and the doomers for being too optimistic.

Cycling, is a product of industrial civilization, and if you think about it, it can only last as long as the factories churn out the parts need to manufacture and keep them running (or rather as long as it takes before the supplies of critical parts can no longer be obtained at affordable prices.) The fact that we can manufacture and maintain fleets of bicycles, enough for the 7.5 billion humans on the planet and have the supply chains to do so is down to a finite supply of fossil fuels. So when they go, likely complex human civilisation goes with them and so do bicycles and the ability to manufacture of spares for the masses. Enjoy your ride while it lasts, and for the love of Gaia don't pour your white spirit down the drainpipe. :laugh:
 
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