Even if you dislike football (soccer to 300 million Americans), admit that the emotions and pageantry make the World Cup a riveting event every 4 years.
And then there are those vuvuzelas.
You know what I’m talking about: those horns that depending on one’s perspective, are either adding atmosphere to the matches or are an annoying detriment. Turn the TV on to watch a match, and that humming and buzzing refuses to end. Change the channel quickly, and that noise will startle the dog, as what occurred this morning, when I flipped the channel to the Ghana-Germany match.
So the million dollar question involves what will happen to those darned plastic vuvuzelas which—surprise!—generally come from China. It’s the most vexing World Cup riddle to me since pondering the fate of the Dutch girls who rounded up 30 of their peers to wear skimpy orange dresses bleating the Bavaria beer brand, incurring the wrath of FIFA and local law officials (meanwhile, Joran Van der Sloot was on the lam for years, but that’s beyond the scope of this site!)
Just go to
Aliababa.com, type in vuvuzela, see how many suppliers appear in the search, and imagine the faces on those poor underpaid Chinese workers who are thinking . . . “what the heck am I making now for $1 a day?” But imagine all those vuvuzelas ending up in landfills or on the side of the road. What are we supposed to do with them once they are gone?
Well,
Treehugger suggests buying ones made from recycled glass, which is a brilliant idea if you want a nice souvenir to take home and if you live in the USA, risk gaining the attention of TSA workers who will probably confiscate it, thinking it’s a weapon. Plus, they may look pretty, but I am reminded of Dame Edna’s comment on Mayan clothing: “If it looks good in Guatemala, it stays in Guatemala.” Furthermore, the odds of a football fan taking a huge glass instrument into a stadium are very low—remember, we are talking about a sport where fans have died in stampedes and the rowdiest are kept behind barbed wire and massive layers of security.
I offer the following suggestions for repurposing those vuvuzelas:
- Shred them and recycle them into sporting apparel. Who would not drool at the sight of a tag on a warm-up jacket saying, “Made from 100% recycled vuvuzelas.” I think I have a new product idea for my favorite athletic clothing manufacturer, UK’s Yew Clothing.
- Reuse them as garden planters. I have seen article suggesting that old Crocs be used as flower pots, which does nothing except turn ugly fashion into ugly gardens. The sight of having a long skinny Chia Pet in your garden, that you get to lovingly trim when you need chives or thyme in your recipe, could make the gardening movement in the US and other countries gain even more steam.
- Saw them apart and build Dutch bicycles. No longer would Amsterdam tourists or locals get confused over where they locked their bike—no would anyone steal such a bike because the horn would be shortened and attached to the bike, meaning that the thief’s neighbors would have to hear that horn, meaning no would else would want it . Just saw off the ends, and you’ve got the pieces for a nifty bike frame. Imagine the sight of those pretty Dutch girls in orange Bavaria skirts—I see a co-marketing scheme in the future.
- Ship them to Amsterdam where they can be incinerated in the city’s waste-to-fuel power plant, ensuring that they never make those loud bellowing noises again.
- Beer drinking apparatuses (Yes, the word that begins with “b”). But that implies I advocate underage drinking.
If you have a better idea, we’d love to hear about them.
