Energy Independence

"Zabaleen" is the Arabic term for those visionary and enterprising people whose culture revolves around recycling. The Zabaleen are experts at "transforming one man's garbage into another man's gold" and aspire toward a net zero-waste economy. Applied and supported this could lead to true energy independence, not only by radically reducing our demand for "raw materials" and hard to extract natural resources but by recycling other less obvious phenomena and materials that are now wasted.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Why septic tanks generally don't produce adequate methane

This article by Al Rutan "The Methane Man" helps explain why septic tanks generally don't produce adequate methane (a question I often get). Thermal shock from cold toilet water, a lack of constant nutrients, poisons (bleach etc) in the water and short retention time inhibit production. Septic tanks COULD be repurposed as IDEAL biodigesters if insinkerator kitchen waste disposals were rerouted to join the toilet effluent, if solar heated water were added to the septic tank (or routed to a heating envelope), if the tanks were insulated, etc. If you have a septic system we'd love to hear your ideas.

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The Zabaleen ethic

There is no such thing as "garbage". Nothing should be wasted. A Zabaleen looks around him or her and asks, "what new use or value can I find in this object, this environment, this moment." The Zabaleen ethic, if properly applied and supported, could lead to true energy independence by making use not only of what we traditionally call "trash" but of other wasted commodities: embedded solar radiation found in light, heat, wind, hydrological cycles, geothermal mass and biomass and from the synergistic behavior of microbes, plants, fungi and non-human animals. We can all be Zabaleen...