POO power

In early January 2013, Kenya’s oldest English-language school, the Maseno School, opened new dormitories for 720 students, and it had a couple of problems. Pit latrines and a faulty sewage system inevitably left foul odors and polluted local freshwater sources, while the kitchen used firewood for cooking fuel—unhealthy for cooks and the environment alike. High school senior, Leroy Mwasaru, now 17, and four of his friends had an idea: to harvest poop and other waste and turn it into a safe, clean and eco-friendly source of cooking fuel. Check out this video courtesy of Makeshift, and read on past the jump to learn more about the project!

What Mwasaru and his friends proposed was to build a Human Waste Bioreactor (HWB) that would harvest not only the waste from all the students in the dorm, but also organic waste from the kitchen, cow dung and slashing grass to create biogas for cooking fuel. As Grist explains, the HWB is “an underground chamber holds the human, animal, and kitchen excrement, while microorganisms go to work breaking down the muck. This process releases biogas, a source of renewable energy comprised mostly of methane, the same as the fossil fuel natural gas that powers most non-electric stoves in the U.S. The gas is contained in the HWB, ready for use as fuel.”

The final version of the HWB will cost around 7 million Kenyan Shillings ($85,000) to build and install, but Mwasaru estimates that it will cut the school’s cooking fuel costs in half while providing numerous benefits for the health of the local community and environment. After that? Mwasaru hopes to turn the project into it’s own company, charging customers according to their ability to pay, so as to provide clean fuel and sanitation services to poor or off-the-grid communities.

Embellishment by hand

"Embellishment is recognized in many cultures as something that needs to be continually recreated, and is thus viewed as an opportunity  to renew one's surroundings as well as oneself. When the natural pigments are washed away with the rain, they are simply repainted without dread or regret, for its acknowledge that in the act of creating beauty, the creator - as well as the creation - becomes enhanced and therefore more beautiful. Consequently the process itself is valued as much, if not more, than the final product"

From the book Built by hand, Vernacular buildings around the world

 

  

naturally built by hand (1)

Lake Titicaca, Perú

The lives of the Aymara or Uros Indians who live at 4.000 m above sea level revolve around the totora reeds, wich provides them with land, homes, transportation and food. In the shallow areas of the lake they mound reed and earth on top of existing reeds to form inmense floating islands. The roots of the reeds keeps the islands from drafting. the natives navigate the lakes on canoes made from tapered boundles of reeds that are bound toguether with grass ropes and the reeds serve as walls and floors as well.

Built by Hand
Bill Steen, Athenea Steen & Eiko Komatsu