COLLECTING AS A HOBBY
Collecting must be one of the most varied of human activities, and it’s one that many of us
psychologists find fascinating. Many forms of collecting have been dignified with a technical
name: an archtophilist collects teddy bears, a philatelist collects postage stamps, and a
deltiologist collects postcards. Amassing hundreds or even thousands of postcards, chocolate
wrappers or whatever, takes time, energy and money that could surely be put to much more
productive use. And yet there are millions of collectors around the world. Why do they do it?
There are the people who collect because they want to make money – this could be called an
instrumental reason for collecting; that is, collecting as a means to an end. They’ll look for, say,
antiques that they can buy cheaply and expect to be able to sell at a profit. But there may well be
a psychological element, too – buying cheap and selling dear can give the collector a sense of
triumph. And as selling online is so easy, more and more people are joining in.
Many collectors collect to develop their social life, attending meetings of a group of collectors
and exchanging information on items. This is a variant on joining a bridge club or a gym, and
similarly brings them into contact with like-minded people.
Another motive for collecting is the desire to find something special, or a particular example of
the collected item, such as a rare early recording by a particular singer. Some may spend their
whole lives in a hunt for this. Psychologically, this can give a purpose to a life that otherwise
feels aimless. There is a danger, though, that if the individual is ever lucky enough to find what
they’re looking for, rather than celebrating their success, they may feel empty, now that the goal
that drove them on has gone.
If you think about collecting postage stamps, another potential reason for it – or, perhaps, a result
of collecting – is its educational value. Stamp collecting opens a window to other countries, and
to the plants, animals, or famous people shown on their stamps. Similarly, in the 19th century,
many collectors amassed fossils, animals and plants from around the globe, and their collections
provided a vast amount of information about the natural world. Without those collections, our
understanding would be greatly inferior to what it is.
In the past – and nowadays, too, though to a lesser extent – a popular form of collecting,
particularly among boys and men, was trainspotting. This might involve trying to see every
locomotive of a particular type, using published data that identifies each one, and ticking off
each engine as it is seen. Trainspotters exchange information, these days often by mobile phone,
so they can work out where to go to, to see a particular engine. As a by-product, many
practitioners of the hobby become very knowledgeable about railway operations, or the technical
specifications of different engine types.
Similarly, people who collect dolls may go beyond simply enlarging their collection, and
develop an interest in the way that dolls are made, or the materials that are used. These have
changed over the centuries from the wood that was standard in 16th century Europe, through the
wax and porcelain of later centuries, to the plastics of today’s dolls. Or collectors might be
inspired to study how dolls reflect notions of what children like, or ought to like.
Not all collectors are interested in learning from their hobby, though, so what we might call a
psychological reason for collecting is the need for a sense of control, perhaps as a way of dealing
with insecurity. Stamps collectors, for instance, arrange their stamps in albums, usually very
neatly, organising their collection according to certain commonplace principles – perhaps by
country in alphabetical order, or grouping stamps by what they depict – people, birds, maps, and
so on.
One reason, conscious or not, for what someone chooses to collect is to show the collector’s
individualism. Someone who decides to collect something as unexpected as dos collars, for
instance, may be conveying their belief that they must be interesting themselves. And believe it
or not, there is at least one dog collar museum in existence, and it grew out of a personal
collection.
Of course, all hobbies give pleasure, but the common factor in collecting is usually passion:
pleasure is putting it far too mildly. More than most other hobbies, collecting can be totally
engrossing, and can give a strong sense of personal fulfilment. To non-collectors it may appear
an eccentric, if harmless, way of spending time, but potentially, collecting has a lot going for it.
The History of Glass
From our earliest origins, man has been making use of glass. Historians have discovered that a
type of natural glass – obsidian – formed in places such as the mouth of a volcano as a result of
the intense heat of an eruption melting sand – was first used as tips for spears. Archaeologists
have even found evidence of man-made glass which dates back to 4000 BC; this took the form of
glazes used for coating stone beads. It was not until 1500 BC, however, that the first hollow glass
container was made by covering a sand core with a layer of molten glass.
Glass blowing became the most common way to make glass containers from the first century
BC. The glass made during this time was highly coloured due to the impurities of the raw
material. In the first century AD, methods of creating colourless glass were developed, which
was then tinted by the addition of colouring materials. The secret of glass making was taken
across Europe by the Romans during this century. However, they guarded the skills and
technology required to make glass very closely, and it was not until their empire collapsed in 476
AD that glass-making knowledge became widespread throughout Europe and the Middle East.
From the 10th century onwards, the Venetians gained a reputation for technical skill and artistic
ability in the making of glass bottles, and many of the city’s craftsmen left Italy to set up
glassworks throughout Europe.
A major milestone in the history of glass occurred with the invention of lead crystal glass by the
English glass manufacturer George Ravenscroft (1632-1683). He attempted to counter the effect
of clouding that sometimes occurred in blown glass by introducing lead to the raw materials used
in the process. The new glass he created was softer and easier to decorate, and had a higher
refractive index, adding to its brilliance and beauty, and it proved invaluable to the optical
industry. It is thanks to Ravenscroft’s invention that optical lenses, astronomical telescopes,
microscopes and the like became possible.
In Britain, the modern glass industry only really started to develop after the repeal of the Excise
Act in 1845. Before that time, heavy taxes had been placed on the amount of glass melted in a
glasshouse, and were levied continuously from 1745 to 1845. Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace at
London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 marked the beginning of glass as a material used in the
building industry. This revolutionary new building encouraged the use of glass in public,
domestic and horticultural architecture. Glass manufacturing techniques also improved with the
advancement of science and the development of better technology.
From 1887 onwards, glass making developed from traditional mouth-blowing to a semi-
automatic process, after factory-owner HM Ashley introduced a machine capable of producing
200 bottles per hour in Castleford, Yorkshire, England – more than three times quicker than any
previous production method. Then in 1907, the first fully automated machine was developed in
the USA by Michael Owens – founder of the Owens Bottle Machine Company (later the major
manufacturers Owens-Illinois) – and installed in its factory. Owens’ invention could produce an
impressive 2,500 bottles per hour. Other developments followed rapidly, but it was not until the
First World War, when Britain became out off from essential glass suppliers, that glass became
part of the scientific sector. Previous to this, glass had been as a craft rather than a precise
science.
Today, glass making is big business. It has become a modern, hi-tech industry operating in a
fiercely competitive global market where quality, design and service levels are critical to
maintaining market share. Modern glass plants are capable of making millions of glass
containers a day in many different colours, with green, brown and clear remaining the most
popular. Few of us can imagine modern life without glass. It features in almost every aspect of
our lives – in our homes, our cars and whenever we sit down to eat or drink. Glass packaging is
used for many products, many beverages are sold in glass, as are numerous foodstuffs, as well as
medicines and cosmetics.
Glass is an ideal material for recycling, and with growing consumer concern for green issues,
glass bottles and jars are becoming ever more popular. Glass recycling is good news for the
environment. It saves used glass containers being sent to landfill. As less energy is needed to
melt recycled glass than to melt down raw materials, this also saves fuel and production costs.
Recycling also reduces the need for raw materials to be quarried, thus saving precious resources.
Cork
Cork – the thick bark of the cork oak tree (Quercus suber) – is a remarkable material. It is tough,
elastic, buoyant, and fire-resistant, and suitable for a wide range of purposes. It has also been
used for millennia: the ancient Egyptians sealed their sarcophagi (stone coffins) with cork, while
the ancient Greeks and Romans used it for anything from beehives to sandals.
And the cork oak itself is an extraordinary tree. Its bark grows up to 20 cm in thickness,
insulating the tree like a coat wrapped around the trunk and branches and keeping the inside at a
constant 20oC all year round. Developed most probably as a defence against forest fires, the bark
of the cork oak has a particular cellular structure – with about 40 million cells per cubic
centimetre – that technology has never succeeded in replicating. The cells are filled with air,
which is why cork is so buoyant. It also has an elasticity that means you can squash it and watch
it spring back to its original size and shape when you release the pressure.
Cork oaks grow in a number of Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece
and Morocco. They flourish in warm, sunny climates where there is a minimum of 400
millimetres of rain per year, and not more than 800 millimetres. Like grape vines, the trees thrive
in poor soil, putting down deep roots in search of moisture and nutrients. Southern Portugal’s
Alentejo region meets all of these requirements, which explains why, by the early 20th century,
this region had become the world’s largest producer of cork, and why today it accounts for
roughly half of all cork production around the world.
Most cork forests are family-owned. Many of these family businesses, and indeed many of the
trees themselves, are around 200 years old. Cork production is, above all, an exercise in patience.
From the planting of a cork sapling to the first harvest takes 25 years, and a gap of approximately
a decade must separate harvests from an individual tree. And for top-quality cork, it’s necessary
to wait a further 15 or 20 years. You even have to wait for the right kind of summer’s day to
harvest cork. If the bark is stripped on a day when it’s too cold – or when the air is damp – the
tree will be damaged.
Cork harvesting is a very specialised profession. No mechanical means of stripping cork bark has
been invented, so the job is done by teams of highly skilled workers. First, they make vertical
cuts down the bark using small sharp axes, then lever it away in pieces as large as they can
manage. The most skilful cork-strippers prise away a semi-circular husk that runs the length of
the trunk from just above ground level to the first branches. It is then dried on the ground for
about four months, before being taken to factories, where it is boiled to kill any insects that
might remain in the cork. Over 60% of cork then goes on to be made into traditional bottle
stoppers, with most of the remainder being used in the construction trade. Corkboard and cork
tiles are ideal for thermal and acoustic insulation, while granules of cork are used in the
manufacture of concrete.
Recent years have seen the end of the virtual monopoly of cork as the material for bottle
stoppers, due to concerns about the effect it may have on the contents of the bottle. This is
caused by a chemical compound called 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), which forms through the
interaction of plant phenols, chlorine and mould. The tiniest concentrations – as little as three or
four parts to a trillion – can spoil the taste of the product contained in the bottle. The result has
been a gradual yet steady move first towards plastic stoppers and, more recently, to aluminium
screw caps. These substitutes are cheaper to manufacture and, in the case of screw caps, more
convenient for the user.
The classic cork stopper does have several advantages, however. Firstly, its traditional image is
more in keeping with that of the type of high quality goods with which it has long been
associated. Secondly – and very importantly – cork is a sustainable product that can be recycled
without difficulty. Moreover, cork forests are a resource which support local biodiversity, and
prevent desertification in the regions where they are planted. So, given the current concerns
about environmental issues, the future of this ancient material once again looks promising.
Flying tortoises
An airborne reintroduction programme has helped conservationists take significant steps to
protect the endangered Galápagos tortoise.
Forests of spiny cacti cover much of the uneven lave plains that separate the interior of the
Galápagos island of Isabela from the Pacific Ocean. With its five distinct volcanoes, the island
resembles a lunar landscape. Only the thick vegetation at the skirt of the often cloud-covered
peak of Sierra Negra offers respite from the barren terrain below. This inhospitable environment
is home to the giant Galápagos tortoise. Some time after the Galápagos’s birth, around five
million years ago, the islands were colonised by one or more tortoises from mainland South
America. As these ancestral tortoises settled on the individual islands, the different populations
adapted to their unique environments, giving rise to at least 14 different subspecies. Island life
agreed with them. In the absence of significant predators, they grew to become the largest and
longest-living tortoises on the planet, weighing more than 400 kilograms, occasionally exceeding
1.8 metres in length and living for more than a century.
Before human arrival, the archipelago’s tortoises numbered in the hundreds of thousands. From
the 17th century onwards, pirates took a few on board for food, but the arrival of whaling ships
in the 1790s saw this exploitation grow exponentially. Relatively immobile and capable of
surviving for months without food or water, the tortoises were taken on board these ships to act
as food supplies during long ocean passages. Sometimes, their bodies were processed into high-
grade oil. In total, an estimated 200,000 animals were taken from the archipelago before the 20th
century. This historical exploitation was then exacerbated when settlers came to the islands.
They hunted the tortoises and destroyed their habitat to clear land for agriculture. They also
introduced alien species – ranging from cattle, pigs, goats, rats and dogs to plants and ants – that
either prey on the eggs and young tortoises or damage or destroy their habitat.
Today, only 11 of the original subspecies survive and of these, several are highly endangered. In
1989, work began on a tortoise-breeding centre just outside the town of Puerto Villamil on
Isabela, dedicated to protecting the island’s tortoise populations. The centre’s captive-breeding
programme proved to be extremely successful, and it eventually had to deal with an
overpopulation problem.
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The problem was also a pressing one. Captive-bred tortoises can’t be reintroduced into the wild
until they’re at least five years old and weigh at least 4.5 kilograms, at which point their size and
weight – and their hardened shells – are sufficient to protect them from predators. But if people
wait too long after that point, the tortoises eventually become too large to transport.
For years, repatriation efforts were carried out in small numbers, with the tortoises carried on the
backs of men over weeks of long, treacherous hikes along narrow trails. But in November 2010,
the environmentalist and Galápagos National Park liaison officer Godfrey Merlin, a visiting
private motor yacht captain and a helicopter pilot gathered around a table in a small café in
Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz to work out more ambitious reintroduction. The aim
was to use a helicopter to move 300 of the breeding centre’s tortoises to various locations close
to Sierra Negra.
This unprecedented effort was made possible by the owners of the 67-metre yacht While Cloud,
who provided the Galápagos National Park with free use of their helicopter and its experienced
pilot, as well as the logistical support of the yacht, its captain and crew. Originally an air
ambulance, the yacht’s helicopter has a rear double door and a large internal space that’s well
suited for cargo, so a custom crate was designed to hold up to 33 tortoises with a total weight of
about 150 kilograms. This weight, together with that of the fuel, pilot and four crew, approached
the helicopter’s maximum payload, and there were times when it was clearly right on the edge of
the helicopter’s capabilities. During a period of three days, a group of volunteers from the
breeding centre worked around the clock to prepare the young tortoises for transport. Meanwhile,
park wardens, dropped off ahead of time in remote locations, cleared landing sites within the
thick brush, cacti and lava rocks.
Upon their release, the juvenile tortoises quickly spread out over their ancestral territory,
investigating their new surroundings and feeding on the vegetation. Eventually, one tiny tortoise
came across a fully grown giant who had been lumbering around the island for around a hundred
years. The two stood side by side, a powerful symbol of the regeneration of an ancient species.
It is difficult to conceive of vigorous economic growth without an efficient transport system.
Although modern information technologies can reduce the demand for physical transport by
facilitating teleworking and teleservices, the requirement for transport continues to increase.
There are two key factors behind this trend. For passenger transport, the determining factor is the
spectacular growth in car use. The number of cars on European Union (EU) roads saw an
increase of three million cars each year from 1990 to 2010, and in the next decade the EU will
see a further substantial increase in its fleet.
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As far as goods transport is concerned, growth is due to a large extent to changes in the European
economy and its system of production. In the last 20 years, as internal frontiers have been
abolished, the EU has moved from a ‘stock’ economy to a ‘flow’ economy. This phenomenon
has been emphasised by the relocation of some industries, particularly those which are labour
intensive, to reduce production costs, even though the production site is hundreds or even
thousands of kilometres away from the final assembly plant or away from users.
The strong economic growth expected in countries which are candidates for entry to the EU will
also increase transport flows, in particular road haulage traffic. In 1998, some of these countries
already exported more than twice their 1990 volumes and imported more than five times their
1990 volumes. And although many candidate countries inherited a transport system which
encourages rail, the distribution between modes has tipped sharply in favour of road transport
since the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1998, road haulage increased by 19.4%, while during the
same period rail haulage decreased by 43.5%, although – and this could benefit the enlarged EU – it is
still on average at a much higher level than in existing member states.
However, a new imperative-sustainable development – offers an opportunity for adapting the
EU’s common transport policy. This objective, agreed by the Gothenburg European Council, has
to be achieved by integrating environmental considerations into Community policies, and
shifting the balance between modes of transport lies at the heart of its strategy. The ambitious
objective can only be fully achieved by 2020, but proposed measures are nonetheless a first
essential step towards a sustainable transport system which will ideally be in place in 30 years‟
time, that is by 2040.
In 1998, energy consumption in the transport sector was to blame for 28% of emissions of CO2,
the leading greenhouse gas. According to the latest estimates, if nothing is done to reverse the
traffic growth trend, CO2 emissions from transport can be expected to increase by around 50% to
1,113 billion tonnes by 2020，compared with the 739 billion tonnes recorded in 1990. Once
again, road transport is the main culprit since it alone accounts for 84% of the CO2 emissions
attributable to transport. Using alternative fuels and improving energy efficiency is thus both an
ecological necessity and a technological challenge.
At the same time greater efforts must be made to achieve a modal shift. Such a change cannot be
achieved overnight, all the less so after over half a century of constant deterioration in favour of
road. This has reached such a pitch that today rail freight services are facing marginalisation,
with just 8% of market share, and with international goods trains struggling along at an average
speed of 18km/h. Three possible options have emerged.
The first approach would consist of focusing on road transport solely through pricing. This
option would not be accompanied by complementary measures in the other modes of transport.
In the short term it might curb the growth in road transport through the better loading ratio of
goods vehicles and occupancy rates of passenger vehicles expected as a result of the increase in
the price of transport. However, the lack of measures available to revitalise other modes of
transport would make it impossible for more sustainable modes of transport to take up the baton.
The second approach also concentrates on road transport pricing but is accompanied by measures
to increase the efficiency of the other modes (better quality of services, logistics, technology).
However, this approach does not include investment in new infrastructure, nor does it guarantee
better regional cohesion. It could help to achieve greater uncoupling than the first approach, but
road transport would keep the lion’s share of the market and continue to concentrate on saturated
arteries, despite being the most polluting of the modes. It is therefore not enough to guarantee the
necessary shift of the balance.
The third approach, which is not new, comprises a series of measures ranging from pricing to
revitalising alternative modes of transport and targeting investment in the trans-European
network. This integrated approach would allow the market shares of the other modes to return to
their 1998 levels and thus make a shift of balance. It is far more ambitious than it looks, bearing
in mind the historical imbalance in favour of roads for the last fifty years, but would achieve a
marked break in the link between road transport growth and economic growth, without placing D
