The Politics of Permaculture...Week 2, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!
The work we have been doing lately with the #whitepallet project and #just1acre project have been taking off and we are pretty excited. The goal was to engage with people and find free ways to get them involved in their community. The desire was to make it beneficial to everyone involved.
That being said, there has been some good, some bad and some ugly...
When we look at the things that we have been doing, we see that we have to deal with humanity and we saw it coming. I have often said that getting things in the ground and growing food is the easy part. The hard part is dealing with humanity.
Backyard chickens....
We have heard a complaint about a project that we are working on. Someone called a public entity we work with and said that backyard chickens are for foreigners and that the organization should not support what we are doing. It made us pause for a moment, but we are soldiering on.
The White Pallet Project...
People have been stealing the buckets. We can hope they are being put to good use and we have plenty. Of the 40 that we have put into circulation, 25 have come back and cycled through. That is not too bad. When we consider the number of buckets that are going into landfill and that we have stopped, we are pretty happy. Lately, though we have taken to labeling them a bit better.
The Year Three Project...
We are working with Starbucks on this project. The big corporate giant STARBUCKS! The problem that we are seeing is complaints from people about why were not working with more local organizations. The Year 3 project is designed to take all of that mass generated by Starbucks and get as close as possible to zero waste. The small, local places don't have that much of a problem. Moonbird is a great little shop that really does not generate that much waste as most people drink from porcelain cups in the store, and we get all of their coffee grounds. The rest is negligible and in the future, they will piggy back on the things that we have worked out for the larger organizations.
Still, we are inundated with people who do not think we can pull it off.
A lot of people are happy with the projects or indifferent.
We have long known that our biggest challenge will be people. There is no way around it. The politics of permaculture is definitely a wall which must be overcome.
Want to know more about what we are doing? Join us for Meetings at Moonbird on Saturday Mornings from 10 a.m. to Noon! Go to www.thelifecooperative.org or feel free to contact us at life@thelifecooperative.org
That being said, there has been some good, some bad and some ugly...
When we look at the things that we have been doing, we see that we have to deal with humanity and we saw it coming. I have often said that getting things in the ground and growing food is the easy part. The hard part is dealing with humanity.
Backyard chickens....
We have heard a complaint about a project that we are working on. Someone called a public entity we work with and said that backyard chickens are for foreigners and that the organization should not support what we are doing. It made us pause for a moment, but we are soldiering on.
The White Pallet Project...
People have been stealing the buckets. We can hope they are being put to good use and we have plenty. Of the 40 that we have put into circulation, 25 have come back and cycled through. That is not too bad. When we consider the number of buckets that are going into landfill and that we have stopped, we are pretty happy. Lately, though we have taken to labeling them a bit better.The Year Three Project...
We are working with Starbucks on this project. The big corporate giant STARBUCKS! The problem that we are seeing is complaints from people about why were not working with more local organizations. The Year 3 project is designed to take all of that mass generated by Starbucks and get as close as possible to zero waste. The small, local places don't have that much of a problem. Moonbird is a great little shop that really does not generate that much waste as most people drink from porcelain cups in the store, and we get all of their coffee grounds. The rest is negligible and in the future, they will piggy back on the things that we have worked out for the larger organizations.
Still, we are inundated with people who do not think we can pull it off.
A lot of people are happy with the projects or indifferent.
We have long known that our biggest challenge will be people. There is no way around it. The politics of permaculture is definitely a wall which must be overcome.
Want to know more about what we are doing? Join us for Meetings at Moonbird on Saturday Mornings from 10 a.m. to Noon! Go to www.thelifecooperative.org or feel free to contact us at life@thelifecooperative.org
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