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Upcycling: Keep the old & turn it into something new
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March 7, 2017
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A cash-strapped performing arts school has traded a year’s worth of waste for 30 desks.
The off-grid school collected its community’s recycling, as well as its own, and bartered this for the recycled desks.
Set up in 2005, the grid wasn’t working for 65 pupil school Chistlehurst, Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa so they devised a plan. Stick with their eco-friendly ethos and remain off the grid. Unlike an on-grid school, there is no sprinkler system, no heating in the winter and strictly no technology in the classroom. So things are done a little differently, students carry buckets of water from the rain water tanks to the gardens and huddle by a bonfire to keep warm on cold mornings.
“Our kids have had to learn how to get along without certain ‘luxuries’, which is something they take a little time to adjust to, but end up loving the ‘quietness’ of it all,” said Jacyn Fanner, Headteacher.
When they moved into their current building, there were no roofs, doors or windows. Let alone functioning taps and toilets! But after a lot of hard work, the school reached their off-grid goal. Rain water tanks fill the toilet cisterns, solar lighting illuminates the classrooms and batteries, gas and a small generator provide extra energy.
The school is also home to a frog pond, vegetable garden and a recycling village with 12 bins for different materials. This allows the school to recycle a range of materials from mixed paper and cans to plastic and styrofoam. The majority of cleaning products and equipment are sourced from the local community and are as eco-friendly as possible.
The school partnered up with the Wildlands Conservancy Trust 6 years ago, through their desire to recycle. The NGO, which operates in 6 provinces, provided the school with the recycling bins which are filled every week – even during the holidays!
Students have taken their eco-friendly lessons from school to home, encouraging their families to reduce re-use and recycle. So now recycling from the local community is brought to the school for collection. Each year the school get a rebate from Wildlands for the recycling they collect. However at the end of 2016 this rebate was traded for the eco-desks. The staff and students are very pleased with how they look in their eco-school setting and Headteacher Jacyn Fanner wants to see them fill all of the classrooms in time.
So what’s next?
“We have so many ideas and plans – which include a fully solar powered media centre – and we are so excited for what the future holds for Chistlehurst,” Jacyn Fanner said.
The desks are made from 100% previously unrecycled materials, are hard wearing and can be used both indoors and outdoors. Chistlehurst are so pleased with the outcome, they are encouraging other schools to get involved with green initiatives such as Sustainable Schools and Recycling for …
Going off-grid for us meant moving some 500 miles west of the place where I grew up, but I am fortunate to still have a piece of my childhood nearby. I sleep a few inches from it every night, and it’s right above my head across the room, it’s also out on my deck. This little piece of history started out life as a wooden fence, dog eared (the style of cut on the top). My dad wanted more privacy in our back yard so he went to the local lumberyard, purchased a stack of fencing and all the necessary hardware & parts to put up a 6 foot wooden fence.
I still remember him working on the fence after he had come home from work and on the weekends, digging holes for the fence posts, using a long piece of twine to keep the fence line straight… Within a few weeks, our backyard was enclosed and private. Years passed and that wood weathered to a silvery tan color, Dad didn’t stain it but preferred the natural color.
Eventually my dad replaced the fence with new wood, being a child of the depression, he couldn’t bring himself to throw out the old fencing boards that were still good so he stacked them behind the shed. PB was able to use some of them in his business over the years, he did restaurant repair and one of his customer’s decor used lots of weathered wood, that is something you can’t buy from the hardware store.
When we were about to move to our off-grid home, I remembered that old wood stacked behind the shed, there weren’t many pieces left, my dad was happy enough for us to take them. These old pieces of history have been used in various places in the SkyCastle, the headboard of the bed, as trim over the windows in the bedroom, as trim around windows on the deck. The wood is worn smooth, the nail holes remind me of my father’s hands pounding the nails through the boards.
My father is long gone, he passed away in 2012 and was instrumental in making a smooth transition to our life off-grid. I am happy to have a piece of my history so close by. How about you? Do you have a piece of your history in your life? If so, tell me about it below, I’d love to hear your story.
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Strange name for a title, Bobbage, well if you have followed me for any length of time, you will know that Bobbage is what we call the thing that PB (Primitive Bob) does, he takes things that most would toss in the trash and makes the most wonderful (and wondrous) things with it. Today we will talk about the bridge he is building for us.
This isn’t just any bridge, not a small garden bridge, but one that will not only take foot traffic, but will hold up to trucks driving across it, one at a time of course. :)
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Going off-grid on the cheap, it’s possible to do, but you should be creative and flexible, the property was the biggest expense, buying a property with “issues” made that expense much less than it could have been.
Our property’s issue was the access, it has a seasonal creek that runs across the front/bottom of the property, so driving up on the property is tricky if not impossible. We didn’t mind, the rest of the property was great.
One of the things we do to build cheap (sometimes free) is to constantly be on the lookout for free materials to recycle or re-purpose. It’s not the same as going to the lumber store and buying what we need, we often are gifted with material that would normally go to the dump at odd times, this material has its issues, the lumber is rough, has nails, screws and other hardware, sometimes ends of lumber are rotten, damaged or cut off, as I said, you need to be creative.
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Living here going on 8 years and we still have to hike up to the sky castle, the reason is because of a seasonal creek that runs in front of the property near the road, it can be navigated if you have 4 wheel drive and the creek isn’t running (which it isn’t most of the year). It isn’t the water that makes it difficult though, it’s the depth of the creek bed.
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Anaerobic Digestion could transform the economics of livestock production and save energy, according to a packed workshop at the 2010 British Pig & Poultry Fair.Across Europe there are more than 4,000 anaerobic digester plants, but only 25 in the UK.
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Green sanitation and organic waste management 27th Sept to 1st Oct at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynllet, Wales.
Learn about eco-friendly off-grid sewage systems and how to store and recycle water.
Fees 500/ 395/250
courses@cat.org.uk
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