Our current journey, that we started as a family is already 10 months long. During this time, we learned a lot about people, about ourselves, and most importantly how to connect with and understand the world around us. We always valued minimalism and self-sustainability and this journey gave us the opportunity to observe and learn how people around the world are minimising their consumption of resources from the earth by reusing, reducing, and recycling. We are sharing a few things that we observed and learnt from people in Spain, Portugal, India, Thailand, and Laos.
Plastic - This has been one of the topics Kathi has developed huge interest in the past few years and she is trying every possible way she could to address this issue in our daily life. Plastic is one of the most sticky topics when it comes to pollution. The good thing is, people around the world are starting to realise how damaging plastic garbage is, not only to the environment, but also to the human health. This is a complex topic and people around the world hold very different opinions on what should and should not be done to reduce the effects of plastic pollution. During our journey we saw people handling plastic garbage in very different ways, some way that we were very happy to watch and learn and others that were very hard for us to watch.
First the hard to watch ones - plastic waste was burnt. This was the case mostly in India, Thailand, and Laos. It was a common sight in India to see burning and fuming plastic garbage on the streets. There is little to no awareness in the society regarding what the fumes from burning plastic might do to the health of the environment and fellow humans. This is changing slowly in India because of the
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (clean India mission). We saw a few places in India where the trash was separated and the awareness is starting to grow slowly. In Laos,
Love Laos: Keep it Clean campaign by Asia Foundation is doing a lot of work in educating and supporting local communities to properly dispose and reuse garbage. In Thailand, we did not see a lot of trash being burnt, but the plastic trash management was so poor that you could see plastic everywhere on the streets, and the use of plastic is so heavy that you can't walk out of any store without the merchandise wrapped, and double wrapped in plastic. You have to keep up a good fight to ask the storekeepers at every step of the purchase and check-out to not use plastic bags, and you should always readily have an alternative to carry the stuff you buy in bags other than plastic bags.
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| Open landfill in Kanchipuram in South India |
In other countries, and also some places in Thailand, we saw the general awareness about plastic waste and waste disposal already present and people using creative ways to separate and re-use their plastic waste. We saw plastic bags, covers, and wrapping materials being washed, dried, and separated. Some plastic bags were re-used to refill groceries at stores, some plastic trash that was not reusable was used to create recycled eco-bricks to be used as building materials, and the rest was sent to the landfill.
We are doing our part and producing as little plastic waste as possible during our journey. We try to buy groceries at small markets where they sell open items. We carry our own cotton bag to carry fruits, vegetables, and other stuff we buy. We only drink from our refillable stainless steel and glass bottles that we carry with us. If we happen to get plastic bags during our purchase, we try to return them back at the store so they could re-use them. We are a long way from getting to zero plastic waste, and we are not sure we will be there any time soon. But we are constantly working towards learning from others, thinking about it, and taking steps wherever we could to reduce our plastic waste.
We recently moved to bamboo toothbrushes, which we are very happy about :)
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| Our first bamboo toothbrushes |
Paper - Paper waste is not as problematic as plastic but we saw people re-use them for various purposes. In India, Sam's mom and many others collect newspapers, magazines, and other paper trash and sell them at the recycling stations. We have also seen in India that many of the street vendors use old papers to wrap food (especially dry items). Many of the grocery stores still use newspapers and thread to make a cone and pack groceries in them. We saw some places where paper is creatively used to cover food scraps to produce bacteria that help nourish the soil and plants. We saw paper egg trays being reused as seed planting pots.
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| Street side snacks packed in newspaper cones. Image source: food.ndtv.com |
Water - Water recycling is something we haven't seen in many places. We met people in many places trying to be conscious of how much water they used and we saw at two places (where we stayed), where water use was reduced and waste water was re-used. At the French-Thai family we stayed in Thailand, we saw an experimental cleaning system to re-use waste water from kitchen and bathroom. Waste water was filtered through boulders, stones, gravel, sand, activated coal, and some natural algae. It was currently used to run a solar powered water fountain, with the long term plan to refine the process to be able to use the waste water in a natural swimming pool.
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| Sample four barrel water filtering system. Image source: Aqueous Systems |
At another place -
Gaia Ashram in Thailand - we observed and participated in a much more comprehensive approach to treating water waste. Based on our understanding, it seemed like water was divided in two categories. Drinking water and grey water (water that was used for purposes other than drinking). Also to note, the toilets were dry toilets and they separated poop from pee. And the pee which is very rich in Nitrogen was recycled to nourish the soil and plants. Only natural and home made products without any chemicals were used to wash dishes, wash clothes, and wash vegetables and fruits. So the waste water (grey water) was safe to use on soil and plants. A few grey water systems were setup where the waste water was re-used to grow water based plants.
In regards to reducing water consumption, we saw an interesting four step dish washing method at Gaia Ashram. They set up four large bowls. Before the dishes were washed all the food scraps were separated into cooked scraps, uncooked scraps, and scraps for composting worms. The first bowl with water was used to rinse the dishes from leftover food. The second bowl was used to wash them with home made vinegar-lime soap mixed with water. The third to rinse the soapy dishes. And the fourth and important bowl had water mixed with vinegar/baking soda. This was a key step to avoid any bacteria or unwanted disease causing organisms to linger on the dishes. This was very effective and we saw dishes being cleaned really well and they were very safe for re-use. Even the process to clean up the four bowls was thought about where the water from the second was used to wash the first, and water from the third to wash second, and water from fourth (with vinegar/baking soda) to wash third, second, and first bowls.
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| Four bowl dishwashing system |
This was a very good learning experience for us. We learned that the key to water re-use is to avoid using any products that are not natural but only use products that are safe for the environment.
Food scraps - Directly or indirectly, food scraps go into the environment and either get rotten or composted. It is not common knowledge but food waste is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. Food scraps produce carbondioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapour that reduces the ability of warm gases to escape into the atmosphere thus increasing the temperate of the planet. We saw many ways people reusing their food scraps and here are a few that we want to share.
At one place we saw food scraps mixed with brown sugar and used to create the base for home made vinegar. In other instance, food scraps were mixed with sugar and left in the bamboo moulds and covered with paper to produce a type of fungus that was used to make the soil healthy and nutritious. We also heard ideas from people who made presentations discussing plans to make bio gas out of food scraps and human waste.
Another important use of food scraps is to produce valuable compost. Just cover food scraps with dry straw and water it sometimes. Once the pile is big enough, cover it with a thick waterproof sheet and close the ends with stones or wooden logs. Let it sit for a few months, and the compost is ready. We saw uncooked food being used for making compost. The compost that was produced from this was dark and very healthy for the soil. We saw uncooked food scraps also being used as food for worms that produced compost. Whoever cooks food produces organic waste, and composting is a wonderful way to produce mineral rich soil for free from this.
As we are traveling, we don't have access to resources to make our own compost. But wherever we are, we are excited to join people and participate in their composting process.
Humanure - We realised staying with a few nature loving and recycle friendly people, that human waste can be an excellent source of nutrition for the soil, provided it's recycled properly. One of the uses of human waste was to make it into rich compost. We stayed at two places where this was done and we got the change to participate in the process and learn from it firsthand. At the first place, they had a dry toilet that was a pit with human waste and toilet papers only. After a few months when the pit was almost full, wood scraps or mulch was added to it and sealed for a few months. The reason to add wood scraps is to attract composting organisms that love organic matter. After a few months healthy, safe, and nutrient rich compost was ready.
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| A sample dry toilet design |
Another similar process we saw was where human waste was collected with saw dust/straw in plastic buckets. The buckets were regularly dumped into a pile and covered with straw. After a few months, it was covered with a sheet that is relatively water and air proof, and it sat for a few months. And healthy and nutritious compost was ready.
The above composting methods we shared are only high level details, there are many more fine details that should be taken into consideration during the composting process to make the waste non-hazardous to the soil, groundwater, and the people living nearby.
Another use of humanure we got in touch with was bio gas. It was to use the methane gas during the composting as natural gas for cooking.
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| A simple bio gas system. Image source: youtube.com |
Other things - We learned many others things along the way - ways to make homemade vinegar, kombucha, and soaps. We learned that a dried Luffa can be used as a dishwashing and bathing sponge. We got a basic idea of how to build a clay oven, how a mud house construction works, how to prepare soil for planting, preparing seeds, planting, caring for and pruning plants, harvesting, how to make plants and trees help each other with their nutrients, how to setup irrigation systems to effectively water plants, ways to mulch trees with straw so they get maximum nutrients from straw etc.,. We also learnt how to make our own bread without oven, make our own yeast, and many other small and big things.
We feel that we are just starting to scratch the surface of this amazing area of knowledge about food, farming, natural building, self sustainability, permaculture, and much more.
We will continue to blog about our learnings in future posts and we are happy to share the knowledge we gained so far with anyone who is interested. And if you have information about any of the above areas, we are happy to receive and learn from them.
Let the exciting learning continue.... :)
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