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6 Useful Ends for Spent Tea and Coffee
6 Useful Ends for Spent Tea and Coffee
Coffee is just divine. I’ve woken up other ways and have even taken to drinking a glass of water first thing every morning, before coffee happens, but nothing makes the world feel so right as the sun coming up over a steaming mug, even in—especially in—the muggy climates of Central America, where I spend most of my time.
My wife, on the other hand, comes from proper British roots and often fancies a cup of tea as opposed to the more jolting Guatemalan roast. So, for her, it’s tea that makes the day, and in nearly a decade of living abroad, it’s one of only two things—the other being Marmite—that she requests when family visits from the Isles.
Without a doubt, this love of tea and coffee is nothing exclusive to us, and so it feels fairly safe to assume there are a lot of old tea bags and spent coffee grounds making the rounds out there. Thus, many of us permie-, enviro- types could be making good use of our beverage leftovers, cycling our garbage into a advantageous resource
Here are some of the things we do, and some of the things in store for the future.
1. COMPOST:
The obvious destination for anything organic is the compost bin. Coffee is a powerful nitrogen element to compost heaps, and despite popular belief, it isn’t nearly as acidic as people think. The acid found in roasted coffee is water-soluble so that, by the time the coffee has been brewed, the grounds have a nearly neutral pH-balance. Coffee is also thought to attract worms. Tea is respected for its antifungal qualities, as well as pest repelling, and more importantly, it attracts good bacteria and speeds up the decomposition process. In fact, the old bags can be brewed together in a pitcher one last time to be poured onto the heap.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Taking a Bite Out of Plastic Waste: New Research Offers Unexpected Promise as Permaculture Hack
Taking a Bite Out of Plastic Waste: New Research Offers Unexpected Promise as Permaculture Hack
Reducing plastic pollution has seemed a daunting prospect, until now. Can the tiny Mealworm bite off more than we can chew?
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans alone throw away 25 billion Styrofoam cups each year. Styrofoam is a common polystyrene product, which is a type of plastic. These materials pose a significant challenge to environmental health because they are created with robust molecular chains that tend to give them an unusually durable life span of between 500-1000 years. That means the Styrofoam coffee cup you just threw out this morning will be sitting in a landfill or floating on an ocean 500 years from now, potentially endangering ground water and animal life well into the future.
More plastic has been produced in the last ten years than during the entire last century, resulting in enough such waste thrown away each year to circle the earth four times. According to the United Nations Environmental Programme, annual global consumption of these materials has soared from an average 5.5 million tons in the 1950s to roughly 300 million tons in 2013, with an average four percent per annum increase in recent years.
Paradoxically, the key to solving one of the largest challenges to good environmental health – and promoting sustainable waste management practices in general – could be held by the tiny mealworm, the larvae form of the darkling beetle. A pair of research papers just published in Environmental Science and Technology reveals groundbreaking findings that offer both progressive recycling solutions and regenerative potential to even the most micro-permaculturalists.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Beautiful 1-Acre Small-Scale Permaculture Farm
Beautiful 1-Acre Small-Scale Permaculture Farm
A tour of Limestone Permaculture Farm in New South Wales, Australia. The 1 acre property has been developed into a productive permaculture farm that is currently helping to feed around 50 families. The tour includes a look at the orchard, caravan farm gate, chicken and duck areas, and the shade house.
Limestone Permaculture Farm is a highly productive small acre property, designed & operated on permaculture principles & located in the beautiful Stroud Valley NSW.
Here you can undertake workshops & courses on a farm that exhibits practical examples of most permaculture techniques, along with chemical free market gardening, farmgate sales, passive building systems, health, happiness & much more..!
The Early Days
2010 / 2011
2014 / 2015
They have just entered their sixth year on our wonderful property showcasing what is possible in a short time frame whilst working fulltime.
Brett is running a Introduction to Permaculture course on his site. For bookings and details please click here.
For more information about the work Brett and Nici are doing please visit:
On Facebook,
Two Men and a Pumpkin Farmgate (name is based on two small acre farms supplying the farmgate)
Can a Tableful of Food be Produced Economically in an Urban Environment?
Can a Tableful of Food be Produced Economically in an Urban Environment?
The reality has always been that it takes land to grow crops…no matter the type of crop. People need certain nutrients (protein, carbohydrate, roughage, and others) to thrive and all come from crops that are presently grown on arable land. The problem is that as the population increases, the amount of land available for crop production decreases. But, more people also mean the need to produce more food. It is a circular problem and it requires a solution.
Since land is needed to grow crops, it has been difficult to produce what is needed in urban areas. According to United Nations estimates 66% of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050. These people will need a means of producing some of their own food because more arable land will be used for housing.
Aquaponics is among the possible solutions to this problem.
WHAT IS AQUAPONICS?
The term is the portmanteau of “aquaculture” and “hydroponics”. Fish snails and various types of crustaceans have been farmed and harvested for many years. A farmer builds a small pond, introduces the animals and induces growth with proper nutrition. The ponds are naturally aerated and waste is disposed of via runoff. Hydroponics is a means of using water as a growth medium for plants rather than soil. When the two are combined, the waste products of the fish become plant food (with a little help from naturally occurring bacteria) and the plants serve to help aerate and filter water that is recirculated to the fish.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Storing Energy by Gravity
Storing Energy by Gravity
– A simple and efficient way for large scale and long duration energy storage.
Renewable energy technologies have come a long way since the first solar panels and wind turbines were built to harness the energy from sun and wind to meet the ever increasing energy demands of mankind. Advancements in renewable technologies and mushrooming of bigger and larger wind and solar farms are slowly reducing the unit cost of power generated using renewable resources. Also, the contribution by renewable technologies in many countries energy pie chart is growing in size, and is slowly reducing the world’s dependency on fossil fuels for electricity.
And yet, renewable energy technologies are still incapable of standing on their own and have to lean on the fossil fuel to meet irregular demands. Wind doesn’t blow with sufficient strength all the time and there are days when the sunlight doesn’t reach the earth’s surface at a given geographic location with sufficient intensity. Matching the irregular demand with an equally fluctuating power generation is the biggest challenge faced by renewable technologies today. Grid scale renewable farms often rely on gas-powered “peaker” stations to meet irregularities in supply and demand and are fired-up quickly when needed.
The solution to this problem lies in storing the surplus energy on the grid until it is required.
Traditionally, energy has been stored in a number of ways through devices like batteries, flywheels and compressed air. But other than pumped hydro, none of them really amounts to much from a utility stand point with a potential to match supply with demand.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Food Tank Webinar Series With Dr. Roger Leakey on the Global Food Crisis
Food Tank Webinar Series With Dr. Roger Leakey on the Global Food Crisis
This discussion features Dr. Roger Leakey, a crop physiologist and tree biologist who has worked in forestry and agroforestry aimed to reverse deforestation and desertification in the tropics.
About Roger Leakey
Vice Chair of International Tree Foundation
Born and brought up in Kenya, Roger has had a successful career as a research scientist in tree biology working on the interface of tropical agriculture, horticulture, forestry, ecology, and to some extent social science, around the world, but primarily in Africa. He has been Professor of Agroecology and Sustainable Development at James Cook University, Cairns, Australia; Head of tropical Ecology at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Edinburgh, Scotland, and Director of Research at the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry in Nairobi, Kenya. He has done consultancy work around the tropics for many international development agencies and was a Coordinating Lead Author in the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development.
Roger has a D.Sc. for his work on tree domestication and a Ph.D. in plant physiology. He also has a B.Sc. and diplomas in practical agriculture. He holds a number of Fellowships (FIBiol, CBiol, FRGS) and is a Fellow of both the Faculty of Science of Edinburgh University and of the World Agroforestry Centre. He is Vice-president of the International Society of Tropical Foresters. Roger is the author of a popular science book on the role of tropical trees in environmental rehabilitation, and the alleviation of poverty, malnutrition and hunger. It is entitled “Living with the Trees of Life: Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture” and was published in 2012 by CABI. (www.rogerleakey.com)
…click on the above link to view the webinar…
How To Make Your Own Dairy-Free Milk, Cheese, and Yogurt
How To Make Your Own Dairy-Free Milk, Cheese, and Yogurt
It’s not always the most popular subject to broach within public and/or permaculture circles, but the fact of the matter is that in many, many recent studies dairy is being linked to several chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular issues, cancer, and digestive woes. It’s no wonder, really, as we are the only animal to regularly consume the milk of another, and the only that ingests milk (or milk products) into adulthood.
Of course, dairy has long been a part of the Western diet, and many of us cling desperately to things like cheese and yogurt or a splash of cream in our coffee. Truth be told, the majority of people who are devoted to dairy, especially those with animals specifically raised for milk, won’t soon be giving it up, but perhaps it’s time to start recognizing some of the healthy alternatives out there.
Even if a 100% dairy-free diet isn’t in the cards, knowing how to make all-natural dairy-free milk, cheese, and yogurt can’t hurt, and it provides a new multitude of flavors and dishes to bring to the self-sustainable table. The following recipes are healthy, homemade alternatives that use a variety of sources to create dairy-free “dairy” products. They are not an indictment of anything but simply a new way of looking at something familiar.
DAIRY-FREE MILK
What we are after can really aid in deciding what kind of milk will work best. Is it cream for coffee? A smoothie? Baking? Each base, everything from nuts to grains to legumes to coconuts, performs a little differently, just as the varying types of milk (skim, 2%, full fat, cream) operate differently. Essentially, though, whatever the foundation is, the same techniques apply: The base is ground into a powder and mixed with water, often with something to add a tinge of sweetness.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
