urban

Can Skyscraper Farming Work in Big Cities?

scleaver — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Imagine a skyscraper that looms above New York or Shanghai and is filled, not with offices or condos, but with acres of fresh fruits and vegetables ready to feed hungry pedestrians hurrying past on the streets below.

That’s the idea behind Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier’s “Vertical Farm” project. Despommier came up with the idea in 1999 in one of his courses and the idea is now catching on, a few architects are interested and, as The New York Times reported, Scott Stringer, a Manhattan borough president, is looking into it too.

Stringer is currently sketching a pilot farm for New York City and is plotting ways to get the $20 to $30 million that Despommier estimates it would take to build a prototype, not to mention the millions more to build an actual 30-tower farm.

Of course, not everybody is on board with Despommier’s dream. Jerry Kaufman, professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin, Madison suggests a six-story farm instead of a 30-story version. Armando Carbonell, chairman of the department of planning and urban form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, MA is concerned about the economic realities. “Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise?” he wondered to the New York Times. “My bet is that the investment banker would pay more.” And, of course, there are the concerns over how to keep the farm running smoothly, energy efficient, and producing food that’s safe to eat. It’s no small project, but then, Despommier has never claimed that its anything less than fantastic.

For more: See photos of skyscraper farms the Times article. Check out Despommier’s web site to learn about his project and see more Vertical Farm designs. Read about the off-grid downtown vertical farm for Seattle.

What do you think—are vertical farms in the future? How much of your produce would you want to get from your local vertical farm, if one was nearby?

Photo from the Vertical Farm web site.

City Farmers Cash In

scleaver — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:31:06 -0400

Gardens are popping up where you’d least expect them—under elevated train tracks, in partially torn-down factories, on balconies, and behind rows of apartment buildings. And, these aren’t just home gardeners growing tomatoes for the occasional marinara sauce, they’re real enterprises and can make a pretty penny.

As The New York Times reported on May 7, the urban agriculture movement that’s sprung up in New York City with farmers who grow plants in small neighborhood plots and sell the harvest to neighbors, local restaurants, or at farmers markets is growing fast. The trend is old news in some cities. Prime example: Detroit, where gardens have taken over abandoned lots and partially destroyed factory buildings.

And, like I mentioned, there's money to be made in urban ag. The Added Value Community Farm was constructed on an abandoned three-acre basketball court started in 2003, and last year, the high school students who work the Brooklyn farm sold $25,000 worth of arugula, heirloom tomatoes, and Asian greens to local restaurants, community supported agriculture organizations, and farmers markets. In Detroit, gardens with the Garden Resource Program Collaborative have set up shop in Eastern Market. In Philadelphia, a non-profit grew $67,000 of lettuce, carrots, and radishes in densely packed plots. Finally, in Milwaukee, Growing Power operates a one-acre farm that includes greenhouses and pens of animals, they grossed more than $220,000 last year.

There is a definite need for fresh, affordable produce for low-income residents in urban areas, something that’s often easier said than done (Even with urban ag, Detroit is still considered a food desert, with few local produce options for many residents).

Interested in starting an urban farm? It could be as easy as setting up shop on your back balcony or finding just the right plot of land. Here are resources to get you started:

1. Learn about the nitty-gritty of farming, from seeds to market: The Detroit Garden Resource Program Collaborative, Milwaukee or Chicago’s Growing Power, and Just Food in New York all offer training. For a more formal education, The Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California, Santa Cruz offers a six-month course.

2. Remember, it’s more than a farm, it’s a business. Here’s how to write an Urban Farm Business Plan.

3. Keep up with the Urban Farm Project to see how other farmers are working the land.

4. Read gardening blogs like This Garden is Illegal and A Gardening Year for another type of education, and some camaraderie.

Urban gardens have a unique set of problems and solutions:

1. Soil contaminated with lead or other contaminants? Build raised compost beds to keep your plants out of the muck that can be urban soil.

2. Got too many wildlife friends? Marigolds deter squirrels, and avoid planting crops that rodents enjoy, like corn.

3. If you’re planting on a balcony, don’t mix sun and shade plants, make sure your balcony can handle the weight, and put tall plants in back, surrounded by shorter plants. To maximize water, try an Earth Box.

4. Connect with other gardeners at Garden Web.

Photo Credit: Denver Urban Gardens.

Urban Garbage Dumps

abhibnrj — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:13:38 -0400

Japan’s urban mines, aka landfills, are estimated to have in them 6,800 tons of gold compared to 765 tons in Japan's official reserves. This is more even than the official reserves of Germany and the IMF combined. Japan’s garbage dumps also contain 60% of the world’s reserves of indium and 22% of silver. In value terms there is $833 million worth of indium and $15 billion, $30 billion, $178 billion, $283 billion worth of lead, silver, gold and copper respectively in Japanese rubbish dumps. The amount of aluminum thrown away by Americans every three months is enough to rebuild every plane in every airline in America. Each year newspapers equivalent of 30 million trees are trashed in the US.

Growth and Garbage

Growth promotes making goods which don’t last long or which pass from style and are just as well thrown away. When people lose interest in a product, it paves the way for new purchases.Everything manufactured becomes garbage. Increased production results in more garbage. Some such waste can be recycled, but even if we are able to recycle 50 percent of the present waste we would be back to the same level in about 20 years. One of the most serious environmental consequences of the process of urbanization is the ever-growing amount of solid and liquid wastes generated by cities.

Industrialization and Urbanization

Garbage problem, particularly in the urban areas, started after World War II when expanding economic activities reached religious proportions. The exponential growth of production during the last half of the century created a whole new order of problems. The magnitude of economic activity grew to such proportions that it threatened natural resource supplies and created dangerous quantities of polluting waste.Then mass media made it possible to persuade people to purchase things they would never have wanted. This added extra waste, filling up all the landfills.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, many of the country's landfills have been closed for one or both of these two reasons:

They were full.
They were contaminating groundwater. Underground water is our drinking water and once it is contaminated, it is extremely expensive and difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to clean it up.

Too Much Waste for Nature to keep Up

Humans by their various actions create enormous impact on their surroundings. We create too much waste for nature to keep up. By leaving the garbage on the ground we destroy the atmosphere and by burning them we destroy it even further. Burning emits extremely poisonous gases into the atmosphere which can hurt human lungs and, if untreated, can result in death. Incineration may release toxins into the air and create ash that requires disposal in hazardous-waste landfills, and that takes us back to our starting point: Cities are running out of places to put their trash. The garbage doesn’t go away by burying too. It pollutes the ground and can seep into our farming soil and even into our ground water.

What We Can Do

For this it is important to recognize the differences between sustainable and unsustainable practices. The former provides ongoing economic and social benefits without degrading the environment, whereas the latter are attempts to fill an immediate need for resources. Over time these practices damage the environment to such an extent that future generations cannot enjoy them.

Our activities become sustainable when ·

Materials are used in a continuous cycle·

We use reliable sources of energy continuously

Our activities are unsustainable when·

We continuously require non-renewable resources. ·

Use renewable resources faster than they renew themselves ·

Our actions bring about degradation of the environment. ·

Our actions lead to extinction of other lives

Stop Litter From Our Yard

The origin of litter in the neighborhood is our own yard. One of the primary sources of litter in the community is mishandling of household garbage.

Here are some basic steps which can help reduce garbage creation to a great extent:·

Always dump your garbage in a can or bag and never in cardboard boxes which tend to get damp from the ground or because of rain water.·

Don’t overfill your trash cans and always put a lid on top securely fastened. ··

The containers and/or trashbags must be leak proof, waterproof and kept closed at all times while being stored.·

Avoid placing solid waste and waste containers in or on any curb, gutter, drainage area, sidewalk or paved portion of the street at any time for any purpose.·

Keep a worm bin to compost our food scraps into nourishment that can be returned to the earth instead of toxins that seep from the landfills. ·

Avoid paper or plastic bags.

Take your own reusable bags when grocery shopping.·

Cancel magazine and newspaper subscriptions and read online.

See Poster Highlighting Hygienic Garbage Disposal

Garbage Disposer

A garbage disposal is a must for kitchens as it helps make food preparation and cleanup easy and fast.

There are two types available:·

Continuous-feed style – this is activated by a switch as you run the water

Batch-feed type - activated by turning a stopper after loading the disposal with garbage.For effective garbage disposal consider the following tips:·

During grinding of food use cold water as hot water can melt fats and clog the mechanism and the pipes·

Avoid overfilling·

Keep the unit free from bleach, drain cleaners, or other chemicals ·

Avoid grinding fibrous materials, bones, or coffee grounds. Never grind materials like glass, metal, or rubber·

Run water before and after use

Energy From Garbage

In North America there are several approaches to creating energy from garbage using its garbage to generate energy, or to produce other usable goods from garbage. Currently, there are several approaches to creating energy from garbage in North America.

A US company Waste Management is increasingly turning garbage into energy -- enough to power over one million homes -- the equivalent of 14 million barrels of oil per year or 3.6 million tons of coal.Methane coming out of buried trash is burnt to run generators. Solar Hydrogen Energy Corporation (SHEC Labs ) uses solar energy to convert this methane into hydrogen. They hope to compete with the cheapest sources of Hydrogen that within 5 years.A large-garbage incineration power plant in the port city of Ningbao in east China's Zhejiang Province can incinerate over 1,000 tons of domestic waste per day.

Garbage power, therefore, like solar and wind power, is an environmentally friendly means of power generation. Ningbo is the third Chinese city to have a garbage power plant, following Shenzhen and Zhuhai, two booming towns in the southern Guangdong Province.

Did you know?

600,000 tons of waste is thrown out in Mexico City every month – enough to fill the vast Aztec football stadium FOUR TIMES!

How Garbage Collection Began

Visit The Beginning of Garbage Collection and History of refuse collection (or the garbage truck) for interesting details on garbage collection history.

Article Source:
CopperWiki