Archive for the ‘Recycle’ Category

Modular Reused Recycled Renewable Energy

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

It is official.

We saved $3,963.62 in water and power from 2008 to 2009. The results are somewhat skewed due to the consolidation of our office into the household, but the savings are real as the office was an electric hog, and its equipment still is….even though it has been relocated to the house. The office savings were $2,923.80.

The Household savings were $1,039.82 with more usage (more people in the house for more hours), and many more trees in the yard.

Per the construct of this project, we can now invest this amount back into the household to further reduce the energy and water consumption.

There are many little projects where we could make an impact for this amount of money, but I really didn’t get excited about any of the conventional solutions.

In the last decades of the Computer Industry there have been “religious wars” after war on what was the best technology and efficiency, etc. But, over time simple, modular, and inclusive seems to win over elegant, efficient, and proprietary solutions. Interfacing multiple disparate systems always seems to win over uniformity (API’s or USB, etc).

So, we set for ourselves not to assume a Grid, or standards (safety yes), but to think in terms of small modular units which could be constructed by Reusing Parts, Recycling Parts to obtain renewable energy.

We want a functioning systems from Cats, and Dogs, and Junk for our energy. Thinking in efficiency terms tends to bring us always back to the same place: Large, Elegant, and Expensive.

We would like modular, common and effective. What has always made these systems work has been the wiring or wireless backbone, and the interfaces. These we will have to work out, but we want an inclusive system: Wind, Solar, Big, Small, Micro.

What got some of this thinking moving was a number of Youtube videos using computer printer motors to light LED’s, and some Wind Turbines using Tape Drive motors. We have been throwing these motors away for years where apparently they might have a second life as power generators.

So, we gave a $1,000 to a friend to see what he could come up with….and he has found a couple large Squirrel Fan carcases which he will try to convert. And, gutted a printer to get our first two motors probably to drive LED lights.

The vision is to keep creating power sources on opportunity with whatever is at hand and then to build a backbone with common interfaces to we can exploit this energy to reduce our expenses and foot print with: Modular Reused Recycled Renewable Energy

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Reuse Planting Containers

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

For the initial Planting Containers, we decided just to use Household trash to begin with…….Every week there are at least two Gallon Milk containers, 1 18 Egg Pack, 6 or more Cans, Styrofoam meat and poultry trays, and other miscellaneous plastic and paper containers. Basically, lots of containers for lots of seedlings. We get a bit lazy about planting for a few weeks and then madly try to get caught up with the supply of Reuse Containers. Here is a link to the Product Page on RecycledPlants.com showing some sample containers.

The process of converting the containers into Planting Containers is straight forward. The Household waste is sorted into four basic groups:

1) Plastic
2) Paper
3) Cans
4) Egg Cartons and Meat trays

1) For plastic containers with narrow tops, we use a box cutter to cut off the top sufficient to have a opening which makes it easy to add plants. Then I use a hobby soldering iron which I use to melt two or three holes in the bottom of the containers for drainage.

2) We do the Paper Containers the same way as the Plastic Containers. Cut off the tops if required and burn drainage holes.

3) The Cans just need Drainage holes, and for this we use a small Phillips Screw driver as a punch and a small tack hammer and punch two or three holes in the bottoms for Drainage.

4) Our Egg Cartoons are paper which makes them great for small seeds, but we found out they fall apart very easily so we started using the meat trays under the Egg Cartoons so I could move them around. Then we noticed the trays didn’t drain (obviously as they were plastic), so we burned drainage holes in them with the soldering iron and this combination made for nice seed trays.

Here is a link to our video on how to convert your household trash into Reuse Planting Containers.

We keep our eye out for nursery containers being thrown out and salvage a few every month or so. We reuse 5 gallon containers usually paint, and a local restaurant helps us out in several ways: they save the 5 Gallon Oil containers which we reuse, and they save CRV containers which we turn in to help with our 15 Gallon Container purchase fund.

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The Concept of Recycled Plants

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Recycled Plants came about as a challenge from my grown children to become more “Green”.

And, after watching a film on the Urban Homesteaders, I added many of their ideas as we have an Urban Home which lent itself to conversation techniques.  They have a ga…gillion sites:

www.pathtofreedom.com

www.peddleswagon.com

www.freedomgardens.org

www.freedomseeds.org

www.littlehomsteadinthecity.com

and, I sure they have a few more as well as the film up on YouTube www.homegrownrevolutionfilm.com

I added from my own experiences the concepts of the iterative processes, and self funding.

So, the concept became a challenge:  We had to get our home to renewable energy and grow our own food without spending any additional money except that which could be generated naturally in an urban environment, and expenditures had to be $25 or less (some small multiples of $25 would be allowed, but no large capital expenditures).

The Organization of Recycled Plants was to be me as the laborer and my youngest grown son as the CEO. Other family members could help when the felt like it.
Big John

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