The 17 minute interview and background is  here:

May the food waste, the soil and the hope this project offers bring a smile to your face,

M

” . . . Iran’s population in 1979 when the Islamic Revolution occurred was 37 million; today it’s 75 million. Egypt’s was 40 million; today it’s 85 million. The stresses from more people, climate change and decades of environmental abuse in both countries can no longer be ignored or bought off.

On July 9, Iran’s former agriculture minister, Issa Kalantari, an adviser to Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, spoke to this reality in the Ghanoon newspaper: “Our main problem that threatens us, that is more dangerous than Israel, America or political fighting, is the issue of living in Iran,” said Kalantari. “It is that the Iranian plateau is becoming uninhabitable. … Groundwater has decreased and a negative water balance is widespread, and no one is thinking about this.”

He continued: “I am deeply worried about the future generations. … If this situation is not reformed, in 30 years Iran will be a ghost town. Even if there is precipitation in the desert, there will be no yield, because the area for groundwater will be dried and water will remain at ground level and evaporate.” Kalantari added: “All the bodies of natural water in Iran are drying up: Lake Urumieh, Bakhtegan, Tashak, Parishan and others.” Kalantari concluded that the “deserts in Iran are spreading, and I am warning you that South Alborz and East Zagros will be uninhabitable and people will have to migrate. But where? Easily I can say that of the 75 million people in Iran, 45 million will have uncertain circumstances. … If we start this very day to address this, it will take 12 to 15 years to balance.”

In Egypt, soil compaction and rising sea levels have already led to saltwater intrusion in the Nile Delta; overfishing and overdevelopment are threatening the Red Sea ecosystem, and unregulated and unsustainable agricultural practices in poorer districts, plus more extreme temperatures, are contributing to erosion and desertification. The World Bank estimates that environmental degradation is costing Egypt 5 percent of gross domestic product annually.”

To find out more, read Tom Friedman’s column, Mother Nature and the Middle Class, in the New York Times.

It’s not just a plan for this suburb; it can be used to make any suburb sustainable – it’s free and you’re welcome to put it to work where you are.

Now the Plan can be read on mobiles, kindles and is very easy to search, use and tweet.  Get it here:

theplan.sustainablehouse.com…

Enjoy.

You can see some of the folks who support the Plan.

Please sign the petition to have the Plan exhibited for public comment.  We want the Plan and there’s strong community support for it from here and other people across Sydney, Australia and overseas.

If we can get the Plan made here anyone may use it as an example to persuade other councils and governments to make a Plan to sustain the suburb where they live – if you’re reading this in Melbourne or Texas, USA – sign the petition for the Plan and you’ll be able to use a Plan like this where you live and work, too.

Michael

youtu.be/SHkMh8wwlXY…

Thank you, Mikey – you’re terrific and so’s your vid.

Join with us to make the Plan happen and watch the vid and go to the link there . ..

M

‘Dear Michael

I may have a spring (h2o) or some form of h2o course running through my front yard under the middle of my house & than exiting from the northern corner of the rear of the house. This has been confirmed by a builder who has taken the ‘levels’ to level the house where the house has ‘sank’ in these areas.

The house is a 1950′s weatherboard constructed on piers whereby due to the land sloping from the road frontage to the back of the block it will be necessary to consider drainage & h2o diversion.

My question is how to make best possible usage from this diverted h2o i.e. pond(s) storage with long term view for grey h2o treatment & recycle capacity.

I have one immediate neighbour on the immediate opposite boundary fence.’

And this is my answer:

Dear John

Vertical garden with soil exposed

Timber pallet vertical garden with soil in sacks

Tafe Outreach students built this couple of vertical gardens in my back yard.

It took a couple of hours to do the first one but it had to lie down flat for four weeks while the plants took in the soil.

The other one was built and lifted up and the top planting done in about an hour; by containing all the soil in the sacks and cutting a notch in the sacks to insert the plants we greatly speeded up the process.  And it’s beaut to see the top row planted in the one go.

It cost us nothing.  The timber pallets were from a nearby coffee house, Toby’s Estate, as were the sacks, we made the compost soil ourselves, and the plants we grew, too.

When the plants are a little bigger we’ll either put them in our road gardens or offer them for sale.

Sweet,

M

‘Mike,
On  recent tour of your house with Ryde TAFE college, you told me the septic tank did not give off methane because of the anarobic bacteria. You asked me to ask the question on your blogg. Being an old fart, I do not know how to use these wiz bang electronic garbbage, so in search of knowledge, I am contacting you directly. My knowledge on septic tanks is limited to the anarobic bacteria break down the liquids; while airobic bacteria breaks down the crust which forms on top. Chemical are not used for fear of killing these little criters. If the bacteria are killed the whole tank must be emptied and the tank walls scrubbed before the tank is allowed to be refilled and the bacteria begins to form again. My understanding/ mis-understanding is while the bacteria is breaking down the solids/liquids they release methane gas.
One thing I was please to hear from you is “search for the truth and do not accept anything less”, those inspiring words has me at you door step. If the answer does help others please feel free to transfer my question to your blogg.

Regards
FL’

FL, the sewage system here works like this:

• raw sewage goes into a tank at one end where it sits for about a day or two while more and more sewage is added
• when that first tank gets full a pump transfers the top couple of hundred litres from the top of that tank to another two connected tanks in which air is continually blown into the sewage there by a 60 watt pump at 60 litres of air a minute
• if those two connected tanks are full then, when the pump transfers sewage from the first tank, that transferred sewage displaces water from them to a final tank where the water is held until it’s pumped to flush the toilet, wash the clothes or hose the garden
• all the tanks are ventilated with inflowing air naturally entering them and being drawn across the sewage to a vent pipe at one end which rises above the house roof

So air is pumped into about half of the stored sewage.  This is aerobic.  That is, it’s full of air.

About half of the sewage has only the air that is in the water or passes across it as it is drawn up to the vent pipe. This is slightly anerobic.

Some observations:

• frogs live in the tanks and I hear them calling out.  As far as I can tell, they’re not saying, “Help, I’m full of it, get me out of here”.  Judging by the little ones I disturb when I inspect the tanks they’re happy in there
• some slight odour is detectable when sewage is transferred from one tank to the other

As the system doesn’t smell I think its almost entirely aerobic; it’s easy to tell when something’s anerobic because there’s a smell.

So the process doesn’t produce a significant amount of methane but it does produce some.  My research suggests the amount is minor.

There are sewage systems in India and other countries where the gases are harvested to cook with and they have methane, but they are different to mine.

Great to have your question, thanks,

M

www.smh.com…

Speaking of gardening and food, there’s lots of rain forecast for the next few weeks so it’s a good time to be planting, mulching and composting,

Michael

Seven compost bins in Peace Park, one for each day of the week

A key tool we use to keep compost in our road compost bins from smelling is to turn it at least once a week with an augur.

It’s called a ‘Compost Worm”.  The how-to-use for it is with this post.

It’s a metal thing with a screw shaped end that we dig in and rotate around the sides of the bins to bring up the wetter material from the lower part of the compost pile and expose it to air.

With so much food and other waste in each bin it’s essential to turn the compost so it doesn’t get too wet and go smelly.

Yes, we put in carbon – cardboard mulch, grass and leaves, clippings, coffee husk mulch.  But with a bin capacity of 300 litres and the bins often close to full we need to turn the top half over by hand with the auger.

Between one to a dozen or so of us use the augers each week.  John, from City Road, augers the five bins up near him at least twice a week.

We get at least four to six wheelbarrows of compost from the 13 bins a week to put on our road gardens.

Go the composters,

Michael