Permaculture
A Busy Week!!
It’s been a very busy week since my last post! In anticipation that I might be adding to the orchard over the weekend I spent last Friday creating paths through the brush and grass. My sister and brother-in-law visited with their kids for the weekend and she stayed with the kids for another couple of days. On Saturday Greg got the electrical work in the cabin finished and on Sunday the two of us put in the ceiling (insulation, tongue and groove pine boards, and a ceiling fan). They also brought down another 10 fruit trees for the orchard which makes a total of 17 trees! On Monday I put in three Golden Delicious apple trees and since Mondays are my set day to water the fruit trees I also hauled up four buckets of lake water for those that are already planted. I got three buckets from the rain barrel which is nice since it is so much closer. On Tuesday I put in the last Golden Delicious and cleared more paths as well as put up insulation on one of the walls in the cabin. On Wednesday I put up more insulation and planted a peach tree. Today I put in another two peach trees, so, seven planted and three more to go. I should have the remaining trees put in this evening or tomorrow.
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Walking, gardening, and eating catfish
A slow day today. Started off with the usual green tea with chocolate mint from the garden and a breakfast of peanut butter and strawberry preserves. I don’t have (and don’t want to use) a refrigerator so I’ve been eating a streak of these sandwiches so that I can finish off the preserves before they start to mold. I keep the jar in a small cooler with a bit of well water which keeps it fairly cool on hot days and I’ll probably dig a small, improvised root cellar which is a 4 foot hole dug in a shady area with a well sealed container placed inside it. When I start canning my own I’ll make a point of using the smallest possible jar for that reason. Eventually we’ll put in a proper root cellar too.
After breakfast I took a walk with the excellent medicinal plant book, Peterson Field Guide: Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs. We’re surrounded by food and medicine, we just have to know which plants are good for what as well as what parts of the plant and how to prepare. I’ve started learning and will also start harvesting for winter and out of season use. I think I’ll be starting with Mullein and Wild Rose hips. The Mullein leaves and flowers can be harvested for use in tea as an expectorant, demulcent, anti-spasmodic, and diuretic which can be useful in treating chest colds, bronchitis, asthma, coughs, and kidney infections. A word of caution though, the leaves contain rotenone and coumarin and should be used with caution. The rose hips are the little red fruits after flowering and can be made into a tea very high in vitamin C, I’ll probably mix that with mint from the garden. I’m no longer drinking orange juice so that will make a nice supplement to my diet.
The half-way point of my walk was a visit to the grandparents. As is almost always the case granny offered food: grilled cheese and potato salad. A very tasty treat! I also retrieved a bag of frozen catfish* for dinner. Freezing fish is likely the only thing I’ll be needing a freezer for so I’ll just borrow a bit of space since it won’t be much. I’ve got three relatives all within walking distance so I can spread it out if I end up having a lot. I’m thinking I also need to learn how to smoke fish for longer term storage though I’m not sure how long it can be stored even when smoked. The best thing would be to eat it fresh but when it is cold and the lake is frozen that will not likely be an option.
After the walk and before eating the catfish I worked a bit on preparing a couple of new keyhole beds in the zone 1** garden of annual veggies just outside my cabin door. Back in 60s-90s this land was used as a hunting and fishing club so there were little weekend trailers scattered about and my cabin sits on one of those sites which means it sits on a bed of gravel and rock. Fun, fun. I’ll be raking and digging that rock out into a thin path from the door to the road. The site has been unused for at least a decade which means there’s a nice layer of composted leaves built up which I’m separating out from the rock. The resulting beds will initially be planted with lettuce, spinach, carrots, and radishes for a late summer and fall crop.
*Folks that know me personally probably know that I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years and may be wondering why I’m eating catfish. A big part of my decision to become a vegetarian was based on the energy aspects of diet. It generally takes less energy to eat a plant only diet. Another aspect of the energy equation is transport and there are other concerns such as whether the food is being exported from a country where people do not have enough food due to the production of cash crops for export. When I decided to move here to create a life based on permaculture principles I knew that it also meant that I would begin harvesting the mature fish from the lake. It is an excellent protein source which is available in great abundance within 100 yards of my front door.
**For folks new to permaculture, when a site is designed it is viewed as zones. The house or living structure is Zone 0 and the area immediately outside the doorways is Zone 1. This is the area most often and conveniently accessed so this is where we try to plant the annual vegetables that need the most attention and which are likely to get harvested often.
Days of little chores
After working at a frenzied pace from early May through mid June, first with the cabin and then with the garden, I’m finding now that I have more days with free time for little projects. On Monday I watered the seven fruit trees each with a full 5 gallon bucket hauled from the lake, moved a wood pile to clear a space for 3 new keyhole garden beds near the cabin, finished the gate on my garden fence by adding chicken wire to the bottom 24 inches. Tuesday I finally finished the last bit of painting on the exterior of the cabin, put up a bit of trim to prepare for the gutter, and stained the front door. Wednesday I planted four potatoes, thinned/transplanted chard, and installed the gutter. Thursday I emptied the outhouse collection bucket into the long-term humanure compost, hand washed a small load of laundry, made a grass collection attachment for my gas-less reel mower, and cut a bit of grass.
I fully expect that life after the oil crash will consist primarily of such work as this. At least I hope so because it is a peaceful and healthy life. I have no illusions that for most of us it will also include much difficulty and struggle especially in the first years of adaption. For some it will likely include a much higher level of violence as panic and desperation set in. No one can know the exact details but we can contemplate and we can do our best to prepare.
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Rain Barrel Nerd
You know you are a total nerd when the highlight of your day is a brief rainstorm that fills your rain barrel half way. With the new (actually 20+ years old and re-used) gutter all the rain is now directed to the barrel and our five minutes of heavy rain just now filled it to half. Sweet. I can’t wait to get the others and hook them up into a proper series. I’d like to put in 10 but I may only be able to fit 8 or 9 which would still be a nice bit of water to have around. Given that this barrel would have filled in just 10 minutes I’d estimate that 8 barrels will easily fill in less than two hours with a fairly hard rain, much less if the rain were as heavy as what we just had. Maybe I need 20 barrels?
My expectations of a future shaped by climate change and peak energy is that we must become very efficient at harvesting and using/conserving fresh water. It seems to me that we can expect increasingly erratic weather with periods of extreme drought and wet far beyond what we’ve seen in the past. Combine that with the myriad issues related to agriculture and peak energy and you have lots of trouble in regards to a steady food supply.
If I can harvest and store 1650 gallons of water for use during drought then I will… guess I need 30 barrels!
Humanure!!
We've started our permaculture project!! Our site is about 110 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri on about 300 acres total with a lake. We'll be using just a few acres, probably less than 5 to start with.
We spent the first weekend of work accomplishing our first goal: building an outhouse for collecting human manure for composting. When this picture was taken we were one day into the project. 95% of the materials used were recycled from abandoned or tornado damaged structures. The only thing we purchased was a bit of siding and roofing material.
We'll also add a gutter and rain barrel for collecting rain water for washing hands. The structure is nestled in with a few cedar and dogwood trees so a good bit of shade. My current plan is to mound up large creek rocks near the treated wood base and then soil further out from the rock and plant with a variety of shade wildflowers like Sweet Willam.
A note about permaculture and composting human waste. For a lot of folks the subject of human waste is taboo. From the perspective of permaculture, it is what it is: the natural by-product of human life which can and should be recycled back into the local ecosystem. We won't be spreading this raw manure onto crops because it does indeed contain a variety of bacteria that should not be near food. A five gallon bucket is used to collect the manure and it is then composted in a special long-term compost pile for 2-4 years to ensure that it is safe to use. In all likelihood it will be used for fruit and nut trees, berry vines, and bushes in our forest garden.
Next on the project list: Utility shed and after that a series of small cabins. Some family will be using cabins for vacationing initially with plans for longer term residence later. I'll likely be living on-site much of the year starting in the fall. Composting has already begun and the garden as well as forest garden will be developed in stages starting this fall. Spring of 09 will be focused on the full development of the garden as well as a new chicken coop for 5-10 chickens and a bee hive.
This is just the beginning of our project but given the general state of energy and climate change on the planet, I'm glad to have it started. I have no doubt that peak oil has arrived and, as fate would have it, the effects of climate change seem to be rapidly accelerating at the same time. It is well past the time that we begin building local communities of people willing to see a life beyond suburbia.
Community Technology or How Do We Grow Our Tomatoes?
Much of this article is taken from my writings in 1994. If you’ve read my blog you know I’m very critical of the general state of the world. I thought I’d post some of the underlying thought for my criticisms and perhaps begin to paint a picture of where I think we need to go. I’ll warn you now that the following is a bit radical. I’m not for reforming the current system because I think it’s flaws are too fundamental. We’ve gone on for far too long accepting the basic ground rules of our current social, political, economic, and technological systems. This first resurrected essay addresses the issue of technology as it relates to community and society…
How can we begin to define new social ecological and community technologies? What is the role of these technologies in a social ecological revolution? Can we use these technologies to empower people in their communities and through this break the strength of the capitalist nation-state? Indeed, how can these technologies be reclaimed by communities and elaborated to work bioregionally from within the community?
**Eco-Technology in Organic Society **
In order for us to understand the social ecological potentialities of technology we must first understand the origins of, development of, and current condition of science and technology. Humans, unlike all other species on the earth, have become dependent on tools for their survival. In our slow and graded development in the natural world we were required by our physical weaknesses and propelled by our developing mental capacity to create and use tools. At first it is probable that we used objects as we found them. It did not take long, however, for early humans to begin to alter and improve upon the things they found. They began to create an early technology and along with this they began to create a social matrix in which their technology was rooted.
Community Garden in an apartment complex of the Southern-Highland neighborhood of Memphis, TN, 1993
In early, organic society, technology was intricately intertwined with the natural world and was used by the small community. This technology was guided by an organic outlook which was often highly democratic and based on the needs of people not their every whim or desire. In short, their technology was carefully crafted from within their community and the natural eco-community of which they were a part.It is of critical importance that we understand that this technology was not created to dominate and exploit a machine-like nature. Rather, it was a technology which, like the people who created it, gracefully fit into a spontaneous and balanced nature. The people of this time did not objectify nature and so the tools they created were to work from within nature–from the inside, pushing out to further elaborate themselves and the natural world. This is directly opposite the modern view of dominating an objective nature which must be forced from the outside to “yield her fruits”.
From Organic to Modern Technology
How has our technology become what it has–what kind of society produced it? The technology that we have today has as its base two aspects of 16th century philosophy and science. In her book The Death of Nature, Carolyn Merchant describes the transition from an organic outlook to a mechanical one:
Central to the organic theory was the identification of nature, especially the earth, with a nurturing mother: a kindly beneficent female who provided for the needs of mankind in an ordered, planned universe. But another opposing image of nature as female was also prevalent: wild and uncontrollable nature that could render violence, storms, droughts, and general chaos. Both were identified the female world. The metaphor of the earth as a nurturing mother was gradually to vanish as a dominant image as the Scientific Revolution proceeded to mechanize and to rationalize the world view. The second image, nature as disorder, called forth an important modern idea, that of power over nature. Two new ideas, those of mechanism and of the domination and mastery of nature, became core concepts of the modern world.
It is important to understand that while this transition to a mechanical view of nature was crystallized by Bacon’s development of scientific method, its evolution was gradual and did, in fact, take thousands of years.
The second philosophy which has helped form our current science and exploitive technology is that of Kant. For it was with Kant that we began to study our systems of knowledge instead of nature. Kant undermined the idea that we could ever truly understand an objective nature. Bookchin writes that “Kant denatured nature in the Presocratic sense by removing the material ‘grade of being’ as such….Kant left us alone with our subjectivity”(Philosophy 64). Kant removed any inherent meaning within nature. Whether nature was viewed as an organism or a machine was no longer of importance. There was a fundamental shift in science from an “objective” study of the outside world to a study of humanity and its perceptions or interpretations of that world. Science as a discipline of “objective” observation of “natural laws” developed alongside of an increasingly objectified and meaningless nature. The natural world had laws but it had no meaning or, if it did, science and philosophy was no longer concerned with what it was. This was to be the grounding for the dangerous technologies that were developed along with the elaboration of an increasingly powerful capitalist nation-state.
So, modern technology has developed without reason and without an ecological ethics. To be specific, “our” technology developed without the careful and rational reasoning human beings are capable of. We have been asking how rather than why. It is a technology that has been stolen from people and communities and is now controlled, to a great extent, by multinational corporations and the nation-state. The “science” which produced this technology is a shallow, instrumental one which is used, not to meet the needs of people and communities, but to obtain greater and greater profit for those in control. One such example of this which was mentioned earlier is that of General Motors' 1950’s successful plot with oil and rubber companies to dismantle the entire U.S. trolley system. Another example might be today’s attempt by agribusiness to genetically engineer foods to thrive in the chemical bath that now constitutes agriculture in this country and others. Monsanto does not care about people’s health or the stability of ecosystems. Rather, Monsanto is concerned with profit, and technology which will increase profit. As we will see, this may sometimes include new “ecological technologies”.
Ecological Technology of the Capitalist State
With the 1970’s energy crisis and the developing “environmentalism” of that time we begin to see a slow and insignificant shift to greener technologies. These “eco-technologies”, however, have only been a forced adaption undertaken by the capitalist nation-state in an attempt to sustain the current system of control and domination. Let me illustrate with the example of the immense development of solar collection fields taking up several square miles of California desert land. This was the development of a potentially revolutionary technology by a huge corporation called Luz, not to improve people’s lives and challenge the existing social order but, quite simply, to make a profit by selling energy. Indeed, Luz failed not only beause of its huge scale, but because according to government/industry standards, it was not big enough to qualify for the tax breaks that drive the power production industry. In this case, however, the technology used for the profit was, to some degree, an “ecological” one. But it is just as authoritarian and out of control of the community as even a nuclear power plant.
Another example that I will site is one in which I have had personal experience. I was employed by the Squash Blossom Market of Memphis Tennessee for approximately ten months. In this short time I was able to carefully analyze one example of “green capitalism” and the cooptation of one ecological technology by capitalism. Organic or, more correctly, sustainable farming, has been slowly growing for the past twenty or so years with a boom in the last four to five years. While the “organic” farming industry does seem to be making some progress as far as educating people about the technology of sustainable farming, it is, at the same time, turning this technology into just one more way to further capitalism and make a profit. Indeed, it is becoming a multi-million dollar industry. The result is highly centralized growing patterns (you guessed it, California is a huge exporter of organic foods) which contribute to very high prices and little gain for local communities. To be certain, this sort of “development” of sustainable food production does nothing to make communities self-reliant and is, in fact, little-to-no better than the modern methods of chemical farming. The food is still produced in one place and then shipped across country to people living in far away cities. There is no integration of town and country, just the continuation of a resource dependent city and culturally dominated country.
A community garden created by a local group of Greens in Kirksville, MO 1991
Ecological Technology Directed by Community
The role of ecological technologies should be the empowerment of people in their communities. If they are to be any kind of solution at all they must be radicalized and decentralized so that they are controlled, not by huge multinational corporations or state governments, but by democratic communities. These social ecological technologies must play a supportive role in our development of our communities by adding to the social life and material base of our neighborhood revolutions. In Community Technology Hess writes that:
So long as technology actually seems that remote and that majestic, it will not serve us. Like a monarch, it will rule us. Rather, those who manage it will rule us. The fact is that technology is simply the way we use tools, actual tools in the material sense, and tools of knowledge in the sense of skills and craft and technique. It is not majestic. It is quite earthy. It is not remote. It involves us all. It involves shopkeepers in crowded cities. It involves farmhands. It involves kids. Everyone. People here. People around the world. We are all tool users and knowledge users, from the tribal farmer scratching a seed furrow with a pointed stick to the high-energy physicist aligning a particle accelerator, from the shaman to the molecular biologist(7).
From the perspective of social ecology, when we examine and seek to develop technology we must do so from within the community in which that technology will be used. The many projects of the Peace Corps in “developing” countries are a clear example of what “good” intentions can result in when they are imposed from outside a particular community and its surrounding eco-community. The technologies often worked against the existing social forms and institutions of the local culture in which they were placed because these were not considered in the “plans”.
One of the best examples of this program was the widespread installation of gas and diesel powered water pumps and new wells in Africa. These pumps and wells lasted long enough to change the local settlement patterns and then, sometimes after only two or three years, they failed. Not experienced in the technology and not provided funds if they were, many villages were forced to leave and resettle closer to other water sources. Thus, the end result was the disruption of native lifeways which were, to a great extent, adapted to the original water supply. One analogy that might apply here would be attempting to transplant the organ of a wolverine into that of a badger; this, quite simply, will not work because the bodies of the two organisms have evolved differently and so the internal organs are too specific to be able to adapt to that kind of imposition.
It is common sense which tells us that imposing one specific technology on many different places will never work. The technology must be adapted or developed by the people living in the community for it is they who can determine their needs and they who know the surrounding ecological community. Indeed, social ecology asks not just how to develop a specific technology but, more importantly, why develop it. For the question of how tends toward instrumentalism while the question of why tends toward ethics. An ecological technology must be developed carefully and democratically so that it is based on an ethics of not just sustainability, but freedom. Just as important as the technology is the social matrix from which it is elaborated. In discussing the problems of technology Bookchin writes that:
Just as serious as the extent to which we have mechanized the world is the fact that we cannot distinguish what is social in our lives from what is technical. In our inability to distinguish the two, we are losing the ability to determine which is meant to subserve the other. Herein lies the core of our difficulties in controlling the machine. We lack a sense of the social matrix in which all technics should be embedded–of the social meaning in which technology should be clothed(Freedom 240).
The social matrix of which Bookchin in speaking must be highly democratic and participatory. Technology is not the solution but only a part of the solution and it should be carefully crafted by people who are engaged in the practice of citizenship. It is from this social and community matrix that an ecological ethics and technology will evolve.
Sustainable Food Production in the Community
Since the period of the World Wars food production in the United States has become more and more centralized. We grow our food in one place (California is my favorite example) and ship it far away to cities. The centralization of food production has been, for the most part, based on the development over the past 50 years of the huge agribusiness industry. The industry has its roots in the weapon industry with early fertilizers being made out of chemicals (mainly nitrates) left over from the mass production of bombs. As this industry grew in size so to did the size of farms. Relatively small, family owned farms gradually went into debt and were bought out by corporations with many small farms being swallowed up by the greatly expanding cities. Today, practically every city is dependent upon these distant “centers of food production”. According to Co-op America Quarterly, “When you sit down to eat a meal the food on your plate has traveled an average of 1,300 miles to reach your table. Supporting local agriculture improves economic self-reliance as well as providing healthier food”(Spring 1993).
A sign in front of the deCleyre Cooperative in Memphis, TN. The sign reads:
Our Garden Resource Center and Cafe
Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.
Books, magazines, journals on topics such as anarchism, ecology, women’s liberation, race, class struggle, and labor. Come enjoy a cup of organic coffee or tea with us too! The deCleyre Co-op actively works to promote cooperative living and permacultural design through community education and radical media.
Community food production is possible anywhere: small cities, towns, huge cities, and, most obviously, in the country. All that is required are simple hand tools, soil, kitchen food waste, seeds, people, and the desire to learn about ecology. There are many sustainable technologies which may be used by a community to grow its food supply including both the Biodynamic/French Intensive and permaculture methods. These methods are very space intensive and rely upon the principals of ecology for their basis. In his book How to Grow More Vegetables, John Jeavons describes the philosophy of the biodynamic/French intensive method of horticulture as:
a quiet, vitally alive art of organic gardening which relinks people with the whole universe–a universe in which each of us is an interwoven part of the whole. People find their place by relating and cooperating in harmony with the sun, air, rain, soil, moon, insects, plants, and animals rather than by attempting to dominate them(2).
Using these methods a city community could begin to grow a percentage of its food supply and in a few years could most likely be growing most of its food. How can this be? For one, biodynamic horticulture and permaculture are not just ways of growing food. They are far more. They are art and design. There are countless ways in which we can begin to integrate food production into our existing neighborhood spaces. Obviously vacant lots can be transformed into gardens but what about rooftops, alleys, windows, front yards, and basements? And in a future with fewer cars we could begin to use some ares which are currently paved after the soil was tested and detoxified.
Thus far I have only spoken of gardens as a place in which we can grow our food but it is also important to consider the side benefits. For example, in city neighborhoods, gardens often serve to be far more than places of food production:
On a smaller scale are community gardens. Community gardens are transforming urban vacant lots, strewn with garbage, into a center of community. Neighborhood gardens serve as a catalyst for community development, beautify local areas, reduce food costs, and provide valuable recreational and therapeutic benefits. Community compost projects can be coupled with community gardens(Co-op America Quarterly Spring 93).
As well as being food producers and beautiful places gardens can also serve as recycling centers for organic wastes such as leftover food items, wood, leaves, manures,… All of these are essential in nature’s recycling process. If we take out nutrients during the food growing process then we must replace them by composting our organic “wastes” into humus. In her book Start With the Soil, Grace Gershuny writes that “Composting is a low-cost, nonpolluting alternative to sending household food and yard wastes to the landfill…On the compost pile, yard wastes will recycle themselves quickly”(67).
In cities with more open spaces and in smaller towns in the countryside one productive form of food production might be the CSA or Community Supported Agriculture. While a CSA could also work in a city it tends to require more land than is often available. According to Coop America Quarterly :
Community supported agriculture (CSA) offers people a unique way to reconnect with their food and the land through a direct relationship with a farmer and a local farm. Through CSAs, a community of citizens purchases shares in a farm. A share entitled the shareholder to a set amount of organically grown produce during the growing season. By paying up front, the shareholders also share the financial risk of farming. The guaranteed income means the farmer can focus on growing high quality food, rather than on what crops will get the best price(Spring1993).
We should also remember the relationships that can be created between the countryside and the city. In the past, cities have, as we can so clearly see today, evolved a parasitic relationship with the countryside. Often times doing more harm than just draining away resources without returning them, cities have come to dominate the countryside culturally as well. It is important that we restore a balance to the relationship between town and country–ecological food production must figure into this balance. This balanced relationship must replace the historical development in which the countryside has become little more that a chemical food factory (or a place for other resource extraction or victim of urbanization).
The Bicycle as Community Transportation
Of all the devices invented by human beings to increase their speed of travel the bicycle is perhaps the most beautiful. Why is the bicycle beautiful you ask? The answer is simple. Bicycles are relatively cheap. They require very little material for their production. They can be easily modified to suit practically any need of a community. Their construction is simple enough so as to allow a community to manufacture its own supply. They are easy to repair. Last, but certainly not least, they cause little pollution in their construction and maintenance, and emit no pollution of any kind when they are used.
Revolutions Bike Co-op, Memphis, TN
Also very important in the community is the conversion of “normal” bicycles into working bicycles or, put in another way, bicycles which can carry heavy and sometimes awkward loads. According to an article entitled “Making Workbikes for the Neighborhood”:
Better bike designs for hauling loads were first available nearly a century ago, then fell into disuse with the advent of the combustion engine. But today a tiny international network of ecology- minded bicycle engineers is leading a renaissance for workbikes. The old bikes are being brilliantly redesigned with lessons of the past century in mind, including the experience of being overrun by the automobile industry( Rain Winter/Spring 1992:14).
It is important that we understand the potential of bicycles as a completely radical and ecological technology. This is a technology that can completely undermine the oil industry and one which can, with a little work, be controlled by communities. What is needed is a shift in technology and the development of inexpensive tooling devices for the neighborhood bikeshop. Indeed, “local economies benefit from decentralizing and personalizing bike production. Custom Italian bicycle frames are famous throughout the world because each Italian neighborhood has bike designers and builders”(Rain: 15). The bike shop becomes a community institution of ecological technology. A place in which neighbors can learn not just about bicycle technology but technology in general. And the bike shop could very easily serve as a catalyst to further development of various eco-technologies.
Revolutions Bike Co-op, Memphis, TN
Recycling “Junk” in our Communities
Recycling is one of the most accessible of ecological technologies easily available to communities. Anything from wood to metal piping to an old grocery cart can be “recycled” and made into new, useful forms to improve the material base of a neighborhood. While it is necessary to carry on with the more common “recyclables” such as aluminum and steel cans, glass, newspaper, and other such items, we must also begin to see that these and other recyclables be turned into a community resource not a profit for BFI (Browning Ferris Industries) or city hall. It is, unfortunately, becoming a common practice for cities and states across the country to extend wastehauling relationships with large corporations into recycling relationships often times resulting in the coercion of people and the enforcement of recycling. In these instances a potential neighborhood resource is taken away and shipped elsewhere for processing and reproduction.
One possible solution to the recycling problem is the creation of neighborhood recycling and technology centers. A center of this kind could easily be located in an old garage, storage building, or some other kind of structure that is not being used or has been abandoned. Someone in the neighborhood may even have extra space and volunteer that. People in neighborhoods should also begin to form technology and recycling collectives to work in the centers they create. Such centers should develop eco-tech libraries and could, after becoming established (or as a part of the process of becoming established) offer community workshops and technical assistance on projects such as solar and wind energy, permaculture, building weatherization,… It will only be through this hands-on work that our neighborhood “junk” will be turned into community resources and an added material base for self-reliance.
The overall beauty of community technology is that the resources for it already exist in most neighborhoods–the potential is there, waiting for us to develop it. It is imperative that, as we create our communities we also work to create an ecological, community controlled and developed technology. It will be with this technology that we feed, cloth, and shelter our bodies and it will be through this technology that we interact with nature. We should create this technology just as we would a garden: first, with careful and artistic planning, getting our hands into the soil, then we nourish and craft it as it grows.