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Living a sustainable life
Bridget Walsh on 08 September, 2011 |

With all the issues that confront us, is it possible to be on the Western Society bandwagon, and still be striving to be a conscious member of the community? I managed to catch up with a Hackney local who is doing his best to be sustainable in our somewhat unsustainable world.

Modern consumers seem to have detached a lot from their food sources. What do you think about that?

It isn't just a detachment from food sources it is a detachment from the source of most things we're consuming: our shoes, our toiletries, our phones, our medicines… How many people know where anything they buy is produced, where the ingredients and parts were sourced form, who and how many people it involved, what their pay was, how long their hours are, what their working conditions are like, how the product was transported, the carbon footprint, the oil involved, what toxic by products were produced, what effect the process of the production as had on the local community? Its endless!

With the decline of small scale local trades more and more of us are in cities, dislocated from the production and sources of the goods coming in. Its the result of Industrialisation and is still happening elsewhere in the world. Somewhere along the lines our values have shifted too. It makes it harder for us to see the "true cost" of our lifestyles and what what we are consuming; if we are the lucky ones we do not have to see or live with the environmental and social damage that is being caused- the habitats and biodiversity being lost and contaminated and the communities being displaced and poisoned. In turn this makes it easier for Capitalism and Consumerism to continue, hiding behind advertising and the "out of sight out of mind" nature of production. All this at the cost of the earth and other peoples lives and health.

Permaculture seems like a move in the right direction for communities and the planet. Can you explain that idea?

I'm no expert but this is what I understand. Permaculture is a word created form the merging of the two words "Permanent" and "Agriculture". In the 1970's Bill Mollinson and David Holmgren began to develop this idea and a set of design processes and principles for designing sustainable systems. Although originally applied to agricultural and settlement sytems it is now used as a design tool for many other things too, from a business, to a meeting to how to arrange your kitchen.

It varies greatly from other design systems by having a basis on three ethics of Earth Care (consideration for the environment and planet), People Care (consideration for the peoples' welfare and wellbeing invovled in the system) and Fair shares (ensuring the fair distribution of yield and resources not only from year to year but from generation to generation), as well as having a set of thoughtful guiding principles. Permaculturalists are working all over the world now, creating highly efficient, sustainable, healthy systems.

You’re involved with a lot of community initiatives, give us a run-down on some of them:

Growing Communities, a Hackney based social enterprise providing an alternative to the current damaging food system. Organiclea, an amazing workers cooperative growing food in the Lea Valley. They run a 12 acre community growing site that grows food for local markets, provides training, volunteering opportunites and more! St. Mary's Secret garden, a lovely community garden in Hackney that amongst other things provides therapeutic sessions for groups with learning difficulities, mental health problems and disability.

A lot of your values and lifestyle choices seem to culminate in your choice of abode: a narrow boat. Tell us a bit about that.

It goes back to the issue of dis-attachment to our food and other products. Living on a narrow boat can reattach you to some of these things or at least make you think about them a bit more.

When you turn on the tap you know the longer you leave it on the sooner you will have to move the boat to a water point to refill the tank. You know that the soap or shampoo you use when it goes down the sink will go into the river where that family of ducklings you can see out of your window are swimming. In the winter when your solar panel doesn't provide you with much electricity you make sure you don't leave that light on because you don't want to have your house shake and loudly rumble as you run the engine to charge the battery up. Nor do you want to smell the engine or disturb your neighbours. There's no hiding where your toilet waste goes either!

When its cold maybe you have a wood burner and you can see how much wood you get through to keep warm. Maybe you chopped the wood yourself and you realised that actually its really good to get moving in winter as it warms you up! Half way through cooking dinner you run out of gas - now its time to get a new bottle and fit it or start thinking about that wood burning stove you were dreaming of. It is also lovely to be by water- nature! The boating community is a real community too - friendly and helpful.