Sustainable Swift Industries – more than Handmade Bike Bags
While watching a video on Rowdy Kittens I learned of this little bike bag company in Seattle that makes handmade bike bags. It’s an excellent example of how real people can find their own economic freedom through doing what they enjoy in spite of a tough economy. Really inspiring story and great bags!
The Mannahatta Project
I found this amazing video/lecture on TED over the weekend. The primary topic is visualizing the Manhattan Island of the past but the underlying message is all about sustainability. For example the last minute of the video shows what Dr. Eric Sanderson envisions as a sustainable Manhattan of the future.
Natures Head Composting Toilet
I learned of this through the small house society Yahoo group. It looks like a reasonably priced composting toilet. It’s not for everyone though. It has a liquid separation tank for pee and I can see a lot of people being a little grossed out having to deal with a jug of pee. Guys would need to sit to pee too. See Natures Head for more information.
How to extract oil from olives the old fashion way
It seems some things havn’t changed much in a few thousand years. This is a link to a recreation of the oldest known olive oil press which ironically resembles modern equiptment. It makes me think I should be sure to plant some olive trees on my future sustsinable homestead and learn to make olive oil in the mean time.
8 small wind turbine manufacturers to watch
I found this on materialicious. It’s an article that summarizes eight small wind turbine manufacturers. These are the kind of wind turbines you might use to augment a photovoltaic array and power your house.
Rain Gutters for Vertical Gardening
Julia and I have been considering building a vertical garden with rain gutters. I spotted these rain gutter links on materialicious this morning.
I’ll try scavenging first and shopping locally second… but it’s nice to fine some cool options online too.
Interesting looking book, When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability and Surviving the Long Emergency
I saw this ‘tweeted’ but thegoodhuman one day. It’s a book on living without all the things depend on. It’s called When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability and Surviving the Long Emergency. You can find the book at chelsea green and read an interview with author, Matthew Stein, P.E.
Eat Well Guide
A local sustainable organic food finder… Eat Well Guide… this is definitely cool. First saw it in a tweet from follownathan.
16 pounds grain + 2500 gal. water = 1 lb meat
Yeah Yikes! I had no idea but it sort of makes sense that it might be far more efficient to eat the grain and drink the water yourself than feed it to an animal you intend to eat. By the way this completely ignores the other impacts of raising commercial cattle to us, the land, and oh yeah… the animals.
How much food energy is lost by consuming meat instead of vegetables?
I wonder what the math is like for chicken egg, or farm raised fryers or rabbits. Maybe even for those who want to continue eating some meat it might make sense to simply stop eating commercially raised beef and pork.
