[Pil-pc-oceania] Human nutrients & Toilets & greywater systems

[Graeme George - Earthcare Permaculture]

Matthew, Colin and others

The Biolytix system and many other "off the shelf" technologies that 
have been given regulatory approval fit in with David Holmgren's second 
scenario for our energy descent future - "Green-Tech Stability". His 
first scenario is "Techno-Explosion", ie continuation of the current 
reliance on technology to solve all our problems with unlimited energy 
and resources, which is of course a fantasy. David's third scenario is 
"Earth Stewardship" using Permaculture to design a gradual descent into 
a low-energy future. The fourth is "Atlantis", or total collapse. In 
David's public presentations on this he emphasises that the Green-tech 
and Earth stewardship scenarios are likely to run parallel courses for a 
short period in terms of energy use but must inevitably start to diverge 
as energy becomes scarcer/more expensive.

Thus, technologies such as Biolytix, even though they may use 
permaculture concepts in their design, can only be seen as transitional 
until truly sustainable systems become acceptable. I suggest that a 
reasonable test is the question "Is this technology appropriate for a 
remote village in Bangladesh or Zambia ?" If the answer is no, then I 
don't see it being part of a sustainable low energy future. I agree that 
we need to be able to manage our own systems. Sustainable systems for 
basic services such as waste disposal need to be as self-regulating as 
possible and/or capable of being managed with minimum skills and 
training and requiring minimal resources and infrastructure for their 
establishment. I see most green-tech solutions as being the prerogative 
of the wealthy. Unfortunately we don't currently have much choice in our 
over-regulated society, as Colin has pointed out. (David also has a bit 
to say about getting around bureaucratic impediments!)

For those who haven't heard David speak about these energy descent 
scenarios, his PP presentation can be viewed as a PDF file on his 
website (www.holmgren.com.au), under Writings, Permaculture Solutions 
for the Energy Descent Future.

Regards

Graeme

Graeme George
*Earthcare Permaculture*
35 Deering Ave, Healesville, Vic, 3777
(03) 5962 5070

Matthew Bond wrote:
> Hi Colin,
>  
> From what I've seen and heard about Biolytix I'm a great supporter 
> however I must say I was a little suspicious of it when I heard only 
> people from Biolytix could service it if there was a problem and 
> something about an alarm that can be activated which sends a fault 
> report back to Biolytix via the phone line (not too sure about 
> that??)  I think it would be preferable for the owner to learn how to 
> maintain it.  Then again, I don't know how viable it is to train 
> someone to do the maintenance and there may be other issues.  What are 
> you thoughts on this?
>  
> Matthew.
>

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