“We should design man-made objects and products in such a way that we’re not destroying the resources, but that we’re basically borrowing them for a certain amount of time … And that we can take them out in their pure form and put them back into the system.” ~ Professor Dirk Hebel, Karlsruhe Institute of […]
Category Archives: landfills
It’s noticeable lots of places, but I am most sensitive to it when on a road trip. For example, on the Interstate across southern Idaho that follows the Salmon River through sage plains and various agricultural enterprises scattered around the small towns — I notice it. I also used to notice it when driving across […]
“What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.” ~ Havelock Ellis My friend knew where the old dump was outside of Leadville, and any excuse to go into the mountains was okay with me. We stopped on the edge of town and then turned down a dirt track to […]
Growing up, I was encouraged to “clean your plate!” It usually wasn’t a problem, my mother was a very good Southern, country cook and we ate well, even when we didn’t have much extra money. My older brother and I were big and had big appetites. One year, when we were in high school. our […]
“… it was all about refurbishing and reusing existing buildings. Wainright’s meaning is much more sophisticated; we may not keep every building forever, but if they are designed for deconstruction we can keep using all the parts. That’s the way to truly ban demolition.” ~ Lloyd Alter It was a hard lesson for a young […]
“From a coyote’s-eye view, you could see what the trees were up to: Growth, failure, decay and the drip of acid water through the gravel were mixing a dirt out of the detritus. This hideous forest, I suddenly realized, was there to repair the damage done, and not at our bidding. Its intent was not […]
Plastics in the oceans, fish and turtles choking on garbage, litter … what can be done? I strongly advocate for cleaning up the beaches, oceans and rivers. The cleanup schemes range from just individually picking up trash to complicated ocean plastic-collection systems. In the U.S. we’re also talking about banning plastic straws and water bottles. […]
“…in order to do something big, to think globally and act globally, one starts with something small and one starts where it counts. Practice, then, is about making the ordinary special and the special more widely accessible — expanding the boundaries of understanding and possibility with vision and common sense. ~ Nabeel Hamdi Over thirty […]
I bent down and picked up a plastic six-pack ring from the ground, cut it apart with my pocket knife and tossed it into the back of the car. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Cutting it up,” I replied. “But why?” “Ever seen those photos of ducks or other birds caught up in one […]
And what was even more striking to me, and what I really got hung up on, was that the world inside the screen seemed to have no physical reality of its own. ~ Andrew Blum “It was just waste. Nobody wanted it and it cost too much to recondition, so we just dumped it.” He […]
Writes of Nature 