The Book of Rubbish Ideas

Might we have fruit trees lining our streets?

I was interviewed recently by esteemed journalist Laurel Ives on the subject of downshifting and the piece popped up today in the ‘Body and Soul’ section of ‘The Times‘.

The article was about another of my favourite subjects; downshifting. It’s entitled, ‘How to cope with life in overcrowded cities’ with the subtitle, ‘Daily life on our cramped little island is stressing us out, but there are plenty of ways to beat the crush’.

The story threw up some very interesting statistics that I immediately thought of in terms of the problems we face today with landfill sites and the ultimate disposal of our rubbish.

The article stated, ‘Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that population density in England is already almost double that of Germany and four times the figure for France. By 2056 our population will have grown from 60 million to 68 million - 1,349 people stuffed into every square mile.’

That’s quite some hike!

In 2056, all things being equal, I’ll be 90. My children will be in their 60’s and will have witnessed more technological and I suspect sociological changes, than my grandparents did.

What will we be doing with our rubbish then I wondered?

Perhaps today’s dilemmas will have been solved completely - I certainly hope so - but I imagine we’ll have another set of problems to take their place.

I doubt there will be much waste to speak of at all. Plentiful oil will have long gone and so too superfluous wrapping and packaging and that will have serious implications on the food we put on our plates. The day of the year-long strawberry will be the stuff of fable and I imagine local community growing and composting will be completely commonplace. We’ll very likely be drawing power from the waste we do produce in a very efficient and healthy manner.

Accommodation will have composting and water harvesting devices built in as standard, low energy lights will turn on by the power of thought and for a dash of nostalgia, we’ll be hanging baskets of growing fruit and vegetables at our front doors, not lobellia and dangly fuchsias.

Silent hydrogen and fuel cell powered cars will be as old hat as the Ford Escort, our manufacturing industries will have been re-injected with a passion to produce ‘useful’ and long-living items from recyclate and the materials economy will be a closed loop instead of the current, dreadful linear system.

What a journey we all have to walk from now until then…

We must focus our efforts and energies on getting the youngsters of today into a sound, green groove if they are to be the innovators who will ride us out of the plastic years.

It’s time to take our rubbish seriously, because rubbish is a serious business.

TSx

Click here to read the article in The Times by Laurel Ives.