[Pil-pc-oceania] A small sign of hope

[pacific-edge]

On Tuesday this week, I was told of another small sign of hope. It happened
over a shared lunch with friends and it was a sign of hope because, over the
years, I have listened as people have implied how those living in apartments
and flats are part of the problem when it comes to living sustainably.

Looking around as I wander to town along the harbourside walkway here in
Manly, all I see are apartment blocks of varying height, with only the
occasional single family dwelling. It's partly because of this environment,
and that in which my partner works across the harbour where 48 per cent of
residents occupy medium density dwellings, that my interest in the
sustainability of such living arrangements has been piqued.

The sign of hope I mention came amid a rambling discussion at friends' place
over a very good, very spicy, Malaysian curry and a mellow white that, some
time over a late lunch that went on into early evening, turned into a mellow
red served in a glass that somehow seemed to refill itself when I wasn't
looking.

A young woman, who used to occupy the old beach shack which my partner and I
now occupy, was talking about how she had recently moved in with her new
partner at Cronulla, a beachside suburb on Sydney's southside. They have an
apartment there. Her story went like this...

'One of the residents - a man - started composting. He has one of those
rotating bins and he just started doing it by himself.

'Then, we started putting our wastes into his bin. Before long, all of the
residents in the four-apartment block were composting. We use the compost on
the plants. Then we made a herb garden.

'All of the apartments are owner occupied except one, which is rented out.
It's in transition to new tenants at the moment and we will encourage them,
too, to compost when they move in'.

Composting and making a small herb garden are small things, but the simple
fact that they developed out of spontaneous action by the residents, without
the dramas often associated with conservative body corporates resistant to
new ideas and change, I think is a sign of hope.

So, what are the learnings that we can draw from this modest sign of hope?

First - make use of the Demonstration Effect. The fact that one resident
took the initiative to compost, setting up the bin and using it,
demonstrated to the others that such things are not only practical but safe
and even desirable. They saw the utility of the practice and, slowly,
adopted it themselves.

Second - Start Small. The man who started composting started doing it as a
minority of one. He didn't attempt to proselytise but simply set the example
without consciously trying to do so. It grew in a spontaneous way from what
he started.

Third - work with those who want to learn (this is a Mollosonianism). When
the woman telling the story and her partner decided to join in composting
their household organic wastes, the man made the facility available to them.
Instead of door knocking to attempt to convert the rest of the residents, he
worked only with those who volunteered to participate. Soon, all were
participants.

Fourth - build sustainability solutions into daily life. The initiator of
the apartment composting started it as an activity built into his everyday
life. By doing this, it came to be seen as a 'normal' thing to do that
didn't consume more of anyone's free time, was not onerous or an imposition
and didn't require becoming an environmentalist. Free of the packages that
exhortations to compost are often delivered in, such as associations with
'being green', the practice was seen as ordinary and, thus, something anyone
could do even when they had no 'green' self-image. It demonstrated that
waste reduction and environmental action does not belong to
environmentalists but to anyone who adopts them. Composting became just a
normal part of life.

Fifth - promote the virtue of cooperation. This developed, first of all,
between the composter and those who progressively took up the practice.
Then, especially with the construction of the herb garden, cooperation
became a norm among the residents because it resulted in positive an useful
outcomes.

Sixth - recognise the value of and utilise Appropriate Technology (this is a
dictum of Fritz Schumacher, author of the 1960s classic 'Small is
Beautiful'). The availability of a well designed technology that is simple
and safe to operate, that does not create unpleasant smells, that is cheap
of purchase and maintenance and that is of a scale suited to purpose made
the shared composting possible. Unlike an open compost bay, which can be
smelly and habitat to rodents if poorly maintained, and which may be
regarded as an eyesore, the rotating drum could be used by anyone and the
design avoided many of the problems that can occur with composting. In this
sense the compost drum was an 'appropriate' technology in the Schumacherian
sense and demonstrated that 'green' technology is an important component of
sustainable living.

Interest in waste management in multi-unit dwellings in Sydney datees abck
into the 1990s when the then-Sydney waste Board commissioned at least one
study into the practice. Unfortunately, whatever was learned by that study
went the was of the Waste Board - into non-existence.

This leads to what could be a seventh leaning, coming not so much from the
composting example above but from other projects - publish your experience.
Now that we have the Internet, your experience can become globally
available. That ensures it won't go the way of the work of thee Waste Board.

...Russ Grayson