Green Options

One of my most shameful vices is taking long showers. But my shame could be at least partially relieved now that the EcoDrain is on sale. The simple heat exchange unit works by transferring heat from shower-waste water to incoming cold water.

As another year of devastating drought stretches out before us here in California, saving our rainwater has never been more crucial. Greywater systems can take many forms, and now learning how to create your own rain barrel system has never been easier.

“Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.”  - Charles Kettering

Whoever said a sustainability was impossible?!

Sustainability, impossible?!? That kind of negative thinking is nowhere to be found among the members of the Rhizome Collective in Austin, Texas.  They see a problem with the way we are currently living, and damned if they aren’t going to fix it!

Rhizome Collective chose their name based on the meaning of the word rhizome–

“An expanding underground root system, sending up above ground shoots to form a vast network. Difficult to uproot. “

–and the name couldn’t be a more perfect fit.  Rhizome Collective distinguishes itself as an exemplary resource center for sustainable efforts across the country, offering workshops, consulting and now even a book for others who wish to start up their own deeply green community.

What makes Rhizome Collective special?

Just one look at their Virtual Tour makes clear: Rhizome Collective is thorough and well-researched about the work they do.  They are also optimistic that the knowledge of natural systems can be applied to make the world far, far more sustainable than it currently is.

Furthermore, Rhizome Collective operates on what some would argue is likewise a “forward-thinking” model–a consensus-based, anarchistic (or “direct democracy”) organizational model.  Their hopes for environmental justice mirror their efforts for equality and fairness in organizing, too.

Sustainability in action

Anyone in the Austin area has probably heard of Rhizome Collective through its two-year transformation of the seemingly hopeless Grove Brownfield problem in the Montopolis neighborhood of Austin.  In just two years, the team of over 175 volunteers turned a decades-old landfill and illegal dumping site into an open space, on its way to remediation and reuse.  This outstanding accomplishment was honored with a major grant from the EPA Brownfield Cleanup Award, and Rhizome Collective’s emphasis on reusing the brownfield’s debris in creating an “environmental justice park” on the site garnered even greater praise.

Last week, I posted about the tremendous relocalization efforts of the small town of Willits, CA. Earlier today, I had the chance to speak with Liam UiCearbhaill, the Operational Facilitator for Willits Economic LocaLization (WELL), the Willits relocalization group, about a variety of topics, including WELL’s community involvement, current projects, and future plans.

What is your specific role in the WELL organization?

My title is operational facilitator. I perform a number of functions, but the real focus is to help things happen. We try really hard not to be too possessive of any project. We look around the town and see who is already doing something good in a particular area and find ways to help them, and we look where nobody is doing anything and try to find ways to get things started. By using that approach, a lot has happened. There’s an alliance of groups that gets together to do grant writing, for instance.

How did you get involved in WELL?
I moved to this area about 5 years ago because I could perceive there was a problem [environmentally]. As I looked around, this looked like the most survivable area for this stuff I saw coming down the pipe. I was thinking of the environmental catastrophes I saw coming down the horizon, not necessarily peak oil. When WELL started up, it was pretty obvious to me that this was something I needed to get involved in.

I do a lot of laundry; I mean a lot of laundry! My mother always jokes that the washing machine never turns off at my house. Furthermore, we have a greywater system on our house, so I am particular about the laundry soap we use. Recently, I was given dropps Liquid Laundry Pacs to try.

I buy in bulk, and laundry detergent is no exception. A humongous jug of liquid laundry detergent sits atop my front-loading washing machine, and inevitably, dribbles of soap spill everywhere when I use it. dropps eliminates this mess! These convenient little packets are just tossed into your washing machine with no measuring or spills. They are lightweight and easy to use. A 20 load package of dropps weighs 10 ounces, whereas the equivalent amount in a liquid laundry detergent weighs 80 ounces. Furthermore, dropps is concentrated in addition to the lightweight packaging, thus “saving water, plastic, trees, and fuel.”