Cool Stuff: Green Techonology Ideas

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/01/27/europes-grass-lined-green-railways-good-urban-design/

I think the human race has a destiny (that is if we can manage to not let crazy power hungry people stay in power worldwide). That is the merging of a high-technology and agrarian lifestyle. The more we can union technology and nature the better off we will be. Instead of the raw metal and asphalt we will have green growth.

http://www.popsci.com/arbona/article/2006-11/grow-your-second-home

While this ‘grown’ single family home concept is cool, I don’t really find it practical. Around major cities we have serious suburban sprawl. The American Dream, a white picket fence with a two car garage. A little place to call your own. This is becoming the American Nightmare with people having hour long commutes in gridlocked traffic. Not to mention the newer housing developments for the middle class have lot sizes so small you could hardly put a swing set on it. I think we might have to shift away from the concept of individual property. Instead we should be building upwards. I’m not talking about the small cramped apartment/condo style of housing. I’m referring to a 2500sq ft layout with parking. So instead of 8 houses jammed together you have one large multistory building with communal green space around it. This one building would share a lot space intensive purposes. Perhaps a communal workshop, a greenhouse, compost pile, play area, dog run, rooftop garden, bbq pit, etc. If enough of these buildings were planned you could construct the tram between them featured above to join other communities.

Notable problems with this approach would be that people don’t like to share with other people. We were raised that way and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Second, once developers realize that people would be willing to live in a multi-family housing building if they had enough space, they would minimize the green space and we would lose the benefit of the multi-family dwelling. Third, are the sociopaths claiming all communal space as their own, blaring their music at all hours, leaving the communal areas a mess, and generally doing those things that would qualify them as a sociopath to begin with.

You might ask me, “Why don’t you just live on a commune?” I can answer that pretty easily. I don’t want to live with a bunch of dirty hippies. 😉

Rainforest City

Solution? The Problem with Garbage Dumps

One of the problems with garbage dumps is that we are mummifying our trash. Researchers find newspapers from the 1950s that are still readable and meat with fat on the bone that has not started to decompose. A garbage dump is actually supposed to mummify its contents so that dangerous chemicals and runoff do not invade the groundwater. We need garbage dumps! However, recyclable and compostable materials that should be decomposed or reprocessed are filling up our dumps. While the government has seriously cut back on the number of new permits for garbage dumps. Because of that, I’ve been thinking about what I could do to help the planet and minimize my footprint on it. One of the things we do in my family besides recycling (Thank you Waste Management for the ease of Single Stream Recycling) is composting also know as aerobic digestion. One of my problems with the compost pile is that we cannot compost all food waste. If you live in a densely packed neighborhood like I do you do not want a big stinky compost pile. Which means you cannot compost any diary, meat, or anything that putrefies. I was wondering if we could compost more items if we did it for a larger community? The methane released from decomposition could be gathered and broken down further by burning it in a generator providing electricity back to the community.

While I was doing a little research for this post, I stumbled upon two articles from ecocycle.org: Zero Waste Recycling and Single Stream Recycling. Someone has already beaten me to the punch in trying to solve the world’s problems! I was going to present the concept of community composting which would allow a group, like an HOA, to sign up for compostable materials removal. Like trash pickup, you’d put out your can of grass clippings, leaves, and food waste and in return you could pickup finished compost for your personal use. It sounds like efforts are being made to have a 3-bin style separating and using one truck to pick it up. One bin for recyclables, one bin for compostables, and one bin for trash. Let’s hurry and get me my 3-bin separator!

There are some other cool technologies out there for composting. I had first read about an anaerobic digester from a Heifer International newsletter. The anaerobic digester is an underground storage tank which is fed by manure and compostable materials. In rural areas in Africa the digester’s bacteria produce methane in the digester and this gas is siphoned off and used for cooking while the slurry (which is near ordorless after processing) is used as fertilizer. On PBS I heard of dairy farms using a similar system to use the methane to power generators to operate their farms and receive carbon credits.

Anaerobic Digester

I am glad to see people taking a greater interest in the life cycle of their garbage. And I appreciate the efforts being made by companies like Amazon.com who are trying to minimize the use of plastics in packaging in favor of recyclable materials with their ‘hassle free packaging’.