But what's wrong with nature's way and composting the lot? Far less
energy involved, far greater fertility produced. What happens to the
leaves in the park? They used to be gathered up and burned (hence
November bonfires). They can produce lovely charcoal if they are
allowed to smoulder damply - but modern people don't like the smoke
and steam of smoulder, whereas it's a good traditional method. In the
rainforest it all just rots down and is recycled. Sometimes trees
are better as control systems for climate and soil. Food compost can
be used to produce specific crops - mushrooms are some of the most
productive crops because they are harvested every fortnight, so you
need only a 20th of the area to produce the same amount of crop as an
annual crop does. But beware the monoculture (which is one of the
things Olga and Nikolay were alluding to). Even so we have to be
careful that we don't regard all ecology as having to be productive -
i.e. produce harvests. Not everything has to be directly used to make
a product we can handle, and not everything has to be processed by us
in order to be seen to be processed!
Julian VIncent
------------------------------------------------
MA, PhD, DSc, FRES, MIMMM, CEng, FIMechE
Laburnum Cottage
48 Frome Road
Odd Down
BATH
BA2 2QB
tel: 01225 835076
Mob: 07941 933 901
[log in to unmask]
On 20 Jan 2009, at 05:57, Vik Olliver wrote:
> On 20/01/09 Samuel Bautista Lazo wrote:
>> I've been thinking that we may be able to design more sustainable
>> products if we can use
>> organic "waste" (like fallen leafs, mowed grass from city parks or
>> fodder from farming
>> operations) and transform their fibers into carpets for example, or
>> may be clothing. Is
>> this technically possible to do while achieving the level of
>> functionality of conventional
>> products? Could we design a sustainable manufacturing process that
>> mimics nature to
>> create such type of products?
>
> Take the whole cycle into account. It may be useful, for example, to
> turn a lot of that waste into charcoal to improve the soil, much as
> forest and savanah fires do. Also has the neat side effect of
> sequestering carbon for thousands of years instead of hundreds with
> wood.
>
> Vik :v)
|