The Book of Rubbish Ideas

Be a shining green light in your community - make it a Transition Town!

Last night, I attended the inaugural meeting for my village to become a Transition Town (or should I say, a Transition Village, but the movement’s called Transition Town, oh you get the idea, don’t be picky)…

The Transition Town initiative was set up by a guy called Rob Hopkins, who is now in hot demand by feature writers up and down the country, all queuing to explore his concept of ‘everyday life, post-oil’; me included. His book, ‘The Transition Handbook’ sets out his vision of a solution.

So what is a Transition Town (village, city, forest or island for that matter)?

In their own words, it is: – “A community working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question: “For all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”

It sounds like a bit of a mouthful at first I know, but once you get your head around the concept it’s pretty straightforward and by heeding it’s recommendations, you can make an immediate and considerable difference to reducing your rubbish too!

Part of the problem lies in the fact that we are addicted to oil – it’s in just about everything, from hairbrushes to shampoo bottles, from shiny book covers to the lamp-shaded lights we use to read them; it’s in our clothes, our shoes, our furniture, our cars, our handbags, our contact lens cases, oh boy, does the list does go on…

And with utility prices on the way up and subsequent hikes undoubtedly in the pipeline, it is only going to get more and more expensive to buy the items oil is ‘in’ or dependent upon for it’s production.

One way to survive and hold onto our sanity is to expediently reduce our dependence upon it by exploring the many alternatives open to us and putting them into action in our homes and our communities.

I thoroughly enjoyed diving into this topic and that of ‘the materials economy’, in ‘The Book of Rubbish Ideas’, and I’ve laid out my thoughts on it in the chapter entitled ‘Rubbish Obsolescence’, which might come as a bit of a shock (not the fact that I’ve written it, the chapter you Womble!)…

I’m shooting a video interview with Rob in a few weeks and will be posting it here soon after, so keep an eye out for a really rubbish exclusive!

TSx