Waste Stream

A concept talked about by Novella Carpenter is that of the "Waste Stream", the steady stream of garbage that is produced by us as a people. Novella (if I may presume to refer to her by her first name) would access this waste stream in downtown Oakland to feed her pigs, she would dumpster dive to pull day old bread, fish offal, vegetable scraps and what not which she would then take home to her pigs (with much piggy squealing and delight). The Waste Stream diverted to feed animals and thus people.

A second story of the Waste Stream was related to my by a teacher of mine, a former marine about his time in Vietnam. After each meal on the base he was stationed at all the food waste would be scraped into 55 gallon drums and set aside beyond the perimeter of the base. A long line of Vietnamese poor would stand in line for hours to be allowed to fill a bucket with this slop to bring home to their families for their consumption. Without going into the moral and political ramifications of this practice, these people (both soldiers and natives) recognized the wasted energy available in this castoff food. The Waste Stream diverted to feed people directly.

And most recently, a person I know is looking into starting a micro-brewery and one of the issues that had to be addressed was the disposal of the grains after the brewing process. These spent grains can not be placed into the city sewer system as they can have a disastrous effect on a municipal sewer system. This local Waste Stream will now be diverted into compost and feed for our piggies, who already love beer and wold no doubt love a good bucket of proto-beer. Problem solved.

So what is my point?

As a people we are producing more waste than we can deal with, there is an island of garbage in the pacific ocean twice the size of Texas. Land fills are meeting capacity faster than they can be built, garbage scows drift up and down our national waterways packed with tons of waste that has no destination. Though we may not see it (or choose not to see it) we are drowning in our own garbage. We are choking out the very life forms that we need to keep our species alive with the accumulation of our Waste Stream.

The answer?

Frankly I don't know, the problem has become systemic to our society. Waste generation is such an ingrained part of our industry that we don't even really think about it. I am just some geeky guys with a bunch of animals, I am a nobody and alone I can not fix the Waste Stream. But perhaps we can all do a little to make the possibility of our species surviving a good one. Recycle when you can, compost when you are able and watch what you buy. If enough of us take a look at our personal Waste Stream perhaps the human race will stand a chance of moving beyond this pervasive problem.

As John Seymour said "On the self-sufficient homestead the rubbish man should never need call". Not a bad goal to shoot for at all.