Blog Archives - Dream Seed Farms

Dream Seed Farms

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 17

1/31/2013

More garbage than you could shake a stick at

I think I hit the mother lode today. I found so much junk and bags to pack it in. There was too much for me to unpack and photograph then repack, so please believe me that each bag weighed about 10-15kg (20-30lbs). The loose pieces and the stuff in the bags were comprised of the following:

10 or more green plastic 35kg fertilizer bags
15 or more clear plastic sheets folded (originally about 10 square meters (100
square feet) each)
Plastic shopping bags
Plastic food wrappers
Plastic food trays
Styrofoam
Plastic shopping bag packed with glass bottles and styrofoam
Broken blue plastic bucket
Bottles and cans
Insecticide spray can
One soccer ball
Lots of burned garbage
Aerial TV antenna (cut into sections)
Rice cooker

Most of the bags and sheeting were buried under a fair amount of topsoil, and layered around the area surrounding an old burn barrel. I packed up four of the bags I found with a bunch of the other trash. I could only carry those four bags, plus my backpack basket and the rice cooker. Halfway home, I was so exhausted from carrying the bags, I had to set half of the stuff down, go home, drop of the first load and go back for the remaining bags. I had to leave more than half of the stuff I found today in the forest. This was all from only one small area not much wider than my arm span, that is in the same larger area that I ranted about yesterday.

I don't think I can go back to the same spot tomorrow. It is too depressing. I know it will still be waiting there for me next week!

The only silver lining to this mega-dump site, is that I do get an adrenaline rush from finding and removing so much garbage at one time from my island home.

What a mess!

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 16

1/30/2013

A sickening sight!

It is absolutely disgusting how some of our neighbors have no respect and no regard for the island they live on. There is more garbage here than I can categorize, and my green tarp is stretched for the first time to its limits, but here is a simplified breakdown:

Many 35kg plastic fertilizer bags
Many plastic shopping bags
Plastic sheeting
Plastic bottles
Glass bottles (I do love the big whiskey jug, and will keep and clean it to use as a small window in some future building!)
Plastic garbage can lid
Various parts of various shoes
Broken dishes
Styrofoam
One massive but partial fishing net
Lots of assorted plastic waste

This all came from one small spot off a wooded path leading to someone's vegetable gardens. The snow has receded in this spot only to reveal an absolutely appalling sight. There is more garbage in this spot than I think I can collect in the next two weeks. It is probably the insidious work of one or two people who travel from their homes to their vegetable gardens and throw away everything imaginable along the path. I have fought really hard not to pass judgement on my neighbors during these first two weeks, even though everyday I would find a new secret dump sight loaded with trash. Today's location, however, has pushed me over the edge and now I am mad.

It is a despicable person who collects all their personal household garbage in large plastic bags only to take it to the forest and throw it randomly all over the place. Most of the stuff I found, and the bulk of what remains in the woods, was already bagged and there were rarely two bags in the same place. That means the perpetrator(s) didn't dump their junk in any one place, but literally scattered it all over the entire forest.

This is not tsunami debris. This is someone's personal waste, with which they actively chose to litter up the forest.

I am more than happy to clean it up, but I am disheartened by the sheer disregard for the island, the forest, the wildlife and the rest of the neighbors on the part of one or two individuals.

It is morally reprehensible for any of this trash to be disposed of in the woods like it has been, but the fishing net is especially terrible. Nets catch things, in the water or on land, it does not matter. I was only able to pull out a portion of this net as the rest was buried under a mountain of dirt and other trash. The only way for me to get it all out would be to use a backhoe and dig up the entire plot. I do not have this luxury, so I took all I could break free.

The island was, and still is, populated by fishermen. When their nets get old or torn, some mend them, but even more throw them in the forests or dump them in the sea.

Last summer, I was passing by a garden patch and noticed something rustling in the weeds followed by faint cries. As I approached I saw that it was a kitten entangled in a fishing net. While struggling to free itself it only became more ensnared. It was slowly asphyxiating due to the many loops tightening around its neck. I tried to free it but could not break the net. I had to run to a neighbor and borrow a pair of scissors. I returned and was able to painstakingly cut it free loop by loop. It was originally flailing about, but once I started freeing it, the kitten calmed down and didn't even scratch me once. After I cut the last loop around its neck, it scampered off in to the woods. After it was gone, I looked at the net only to see that it was several hundred square meters worth of plastic filament netting tossed on top of a couple pumpkin plants presumably to keep the crows away.

Nets may have their place, especially in protecting fruit/nut trees from birds, but they are applied in taut sections and suspended from a support scaffolding, not dumped in a heap for any animal to get caught up in. Today, not a few steps from where I found the net, I startled a cat hiding in the bamboo, which means there are animals living so close to this dangerous garbage. Who knows how many lives that net has claimed.

I am sorry for the rant. I will not just stay mad, however. I will take action and clean up as much of the garbage there and all over this island. I will also talk to anyone who will listen (even if it is in broken Japanese!) and let them know that Ajishima is my home and I will work tirelessly to keep it clean and safe.

Even with a hundred hands and a hundred bags it would not be enough to clean up this island.

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 15

1/29/2013

Snow Tires? Snow tires!

Today's list is short and sweet:

One tire
Two tires
Three tires

About a week ago the phone company sent a crew to the island to work on the phone lines. They had to get to a few telephone poles here and there and in the process weed-wacked huge swaths of grasses and weeds for access. (On a quick side note: I hope to gather up the cut weeds and grass later on for a great carbon input for the compost bin we will build this spring!) After they left, I was walking past the field and noticed this big black tower protruding from a clump of weeds in the background. Once it snowed everything was covered, but since we have had two-three days of nice sunshine, certain areas have melted back to reveal all that was hidden from sight earlier on.

I could plainly see these tires, and since they were no longer "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" I decided it was time to take care of them. These three tires are the only things I was able to gather up today, because of two reasons: 1. A thick blanket of snow is still covering most of the fields and forest floors, and 2. I was relatively close to the dump and these bulky tires were all that I could manage to carry there for disposal.

I would have liked to have had saved all three tires but I do not have the space to do so. The treads are shot and worn out in places, and they are unsafe and unsuitable for any vehicle. However, these tires could be put to use in something called an 'Earthship.' When Michie and I lived in Colorado in the US, we researched a group in nearby Taos, New Mexico who were building their homes out of trash. The literal and figurative foundations of these buildings were constructed by ramming dirt into tires with a sledgehammer.

Check out the videos and links below for more on Earthships.

日本語でアースシップビデオ (Japanese):

Feature length Earthship video in English:

There are all kinds of videos on Earthships available here and more info on the group's website.

We were actually able to attend a seminar and mini-workcamp in Taos. We stayed in two different Earthships and helped pound dirt into tires for a building wall. We also studied all the components of the entire construction plan and got to help finish plastering a new Earthship.

There are some things we dislike about these buildings, namely the inordinate amount of cement used. But there are some awesome design features we would love to include in the small house we hope to build on the island in the future: a tire stem wall, greenhouse front for food and heating, water catchment on roof, greywater recycling, among others.

We still have to procure a parcel of land, but getting the garbage to build with will not be a problem! (unless I clean it all up in the next two weeks, but this is highly unlikely!!!)

Does anyone out there have any experience with Earthships or any of their sub-systems? If so please let us know in the comments. Any info, tips or suggestions on how to go about building something like this in Japan would be significantly appreciated!

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 14 - Week 2 - Enlightenment Edition!

1/27/2013

Downsizing? No! Just hard to find today.

I think I have it figured out, well, partially anyway. But first, my meager takings from today:

Fiberglass coated plywood boat hull fragment
Two PET water bottles
One beer can
One full tetrapak drink box with straw inserted
Metal bar/handle
Plastic food cup
Blue plastic packing strap
Red plastic spice bottle cap
Broken flower pot
Styrofoam bits
Styrofoam buoy
Plastic rope
Plastic wheel
Plastic bucket half
Plastic packaging
Plastic orange toy ball

The list seems long, but compared to my last few hauls the sheer volume of trash is miniscule. And, I think this is why:

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

I spent a good part of my afternoon hunting around for garbage. I didn't really find any because I do not have the cold weather and waterproof gear to rummage through heaps of snow. So, I decided to walk down to the shore because I thought the tide may have brought some flotsam in or at least washed away the ice and snow. Not so much...but I did come across this snow covered space.

At first I didn't recognize that there was anything there, until Manju sniffed out some rotting mussels still attached to the styrofoam buoy. Once I shewed him away I saw bits of other junk poking through the snow. And then, I saw the big black buoys in the background (but I left them as it was near some other fishing gear and might belong to someone). I picked out what I could find.

At this point, it dawned on me. I had been out actively seeking garbage; I knew it was somewhere, but I couldn't see it because it was covered in snow. This is where that fitting saying comes in: Out of Sight, Out of Mind. This could be true enlightenment or complete rubbish (pun intended!), but I think one of the most compelling reasons the islanders just throw their garbage in the forest or the sea is because once they do it is gone, or rather, gone from sight. If they don't see it they don't have to worry about it. Most households have a tidy front yard, but look behind their back fences and walls, and you will find a veritable dumping ground.

This behavior pattern is not only limited to the confines of our little island, but is pervasive in all of human culture. The way that most of us treat our garbage is sad. We buy a product, use it and dispose of it. Even if we put it in a nice little plastic trash bag and set it our for the trash man every week, we are still putting it out of our own sight, and therefore out of our sphere of responsibility. Whether an individual dumps their garbage out their back door into the woods or over a cliff to the sea, or a community allows overrun landfills and ocean dumping, the underlying mentality is the same: if I don't see it, I don't have to deal with it.

I am not sure how to change that, either on an individual or a community/cultural wide level. If you have any suggestions let me know. For your input, I would thank you, and the world would thank you!

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 13 - Snow Day Edition

1/26/2013

I couldn't find any garbage today, even if I wanted to!

I loved snow days when I was a kid. School was cancelled, I drank lots of hot cocoa and watched the People's Court and Pasquale's Kitchen all day on TV. I have yet to see this much snow fall on Ajishima; we got dumped on with over 20cm (8+inches) overnight, so I am gonna take a break from garbage collecting today.

I would like to highlight one of the other projects we have done in the past using only garbage, driftwood and disaster debris. Introducing our first ever shipping pallet driftwood compost bin with water catchment, constructed two months after the disaster:

All materials are disaster debris gathered primarily from the shore, with a few bits from the dump

Shipping pallets galore and huge plastic buoys

An entire wall from someone's house respectfully given a new lease on life

Four pallets and four posts set on four broken cinder block footings...

...all different sizes and shapes...

...but it all ended up square, level and plumb!

It took me two days to figure out how to layout the roof with literal scraps, then an hour to build it!

The roof was only as big as the biggest scrap of wood, yet...

...it perfectly fit three sheets of corrugated metal roofing on top!

I then cut bamboo poles from the grove behind our garden...

...and wove them into a retractable cover...

...to keep the crows out

The water collecting buoys filled up sooner than I expected!

All this compost bin cost us was a few bags of screws and nails from the 100 Yen store (dollar store) and the electricity to charge up my cordless drill! I used hand tools for everything else, because at that time: 1. We only had a couple hours of generator electricity per day, and 2. I had no power tools!

It actually took me three days to finish all components of the compost bin. I spent almost all of the second day trying to figure out how to piece all the misshapen scrap wood together into something sturdy and coherently roof-shaped.

After designing, scraping and redesigning, building, demolishing and rebuilding several versions in my mind, I ended up with four rafters and three purlins as the basic structure of the roof. Incidentally, at that time I did not have a ladder nor access to one, so...I built the roof on the ground.

For the final weatherproofing, I nailed and screwed three bent, rusty pieces of sheet metal with all but the last four nails and four screws I owned. I even pulled several dozen rusty nails from the scrap pallets and straightened them out and used those too, because I knew I might not have enough.

Next came the fun part...I lifted the roof up and maneuvered it into place. It only weighed about 45kg (100lb), so I heaved it up and over the posts all by myself. It turns out that the patch-work purlins made excellent hand holds as I stood over the open pit of the bin with a foothold on the front and back pallets. I had propped the roof against the left side and then proceeded to hoist it up a few inches at a time. With the last four nails, I hammered the side rafters to the posts, and with the last four screws connected the beams to the underside of the innermost rafters.

In retrospect, I probably should not have lifted the roof up all by myself. For that matter, I probably should not have built the roof on the ground in the first place! I suppose I could have built a ladder, but then I wouldn't have had any more wood for the roof. Such are the conundrums one faces when building a driftwood compost bin.

We have been using this bin for almost two years now and the compost we get has really livened up our garden beds. The more we compost the better and more productive our gardens will become once we add it back to the earth. If we are able to incorporate a composting toilet down the road, we will also be able to complete the nutrient cycle, returning as much as possible to the land that feeds us.

I have drastically improved designs in my head on a new two bin composting system for our new house. I have already gathered up some materials during my Ajishima Clean Up adventure, and I will post more about those later on. We will probably get started building it later on in the spring, once all this snow melts and it warms up a lot more.

Ajishima Clean Up - 感心と感謝の日々

1/26/2013

　予想以上のゴミを毎日集めて来てくれるRickに、妻ながら感心の日々です。おかげ様で、家の周辺からは目につくゴミがすっかりなくなりました。ただ、少し離れると、まだまだやりがいがありそうです。ゴミ拾いを始めてからもうすぐ2週間になりますが、後半も頑張るRickを見守ってあげて下さい。どうぞよろしくお願い致します。

　木の花ファミリーブログ(1/25)で、Rickのゴミ拾いのいきさつを分かりやすく紹介して頂きました→コチラ　

　英語が苦手な方は、右側にトランズレーターがありますので日本語を選んでご利用下さい　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　→→→
（ただし、残念ながら翻訳は完璧ではありませんので、参考までにご利用下さい。）
また、もし質問やコメント''Add Comment"（左下）等がありましたらいつでも日本語で受け付けています。妻のMichieが、Rickの言葉を日本語でお返事させて頂きますので、どうぞ遠慮なくご利用下さいませ。　　
　今までに、様々なアイディアやサポートをして下さった皆様に心より感謝致します。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　From Michie with Love

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　　　これまでにご協力頂いた方々に、重ねて感謝申し上げます
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木村　浩昭　様

増田　力也　様

安曇野パーマカルチャー塾　様

たけべ　よしひさ　様

山田　長＆桂子　様

小椋　能子　様

瀬政　光彦　様

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　　　　　JustGiving を通じてご協力頂いた方々に、重ねて感謝申し上げます
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アラタ　様

nami　様

なお　様

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::大切なお願い:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
　寄付（振り込み）をして下さった方の中で、もし連絡がまだの方は、お手数ですがご一報頂けますと大変光栄です。レポート送付の都合もありますので、よろしくお願い致します。
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Ajishima Clean Up - Day 12

1/26/2013

Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find.

I really wanted to collect some trash today, and was hoping to find a bunch of stuff. And, did I ever...but then I had more than I could carry and really wished I had a big bag to carry the extra stuff in, and then I found one:

Big plaid tote bag (reclaimed and used to carry most of today's haul)
Side walls of old tire
Bottles and cans galore
Grey plastic pipe
Smashed green plastic basket
Severed extension cord
Desk lamp
Foil-lined, plastic coated paper seed packages
Plastic seedling pot
Cardboard
Styrofoam box top pieces
Unbelievable amount of plastic bags, sheeting, food wrappers, etc
One flip flop (beach sandal)
One clay tea pot
Broken dishes

Actually, I spotted most if not all of this stuff on previous missions hunting down the islander's trash. The tote bag was sitting in the lot of a house demolished last summer, and the bulk of the plastic came from one of my most favorite places on the island. I saw it before, but my basket and hands were full and I was on my way home. I have many mental notes made in my mind of places where I saw a ton of junk, it is just a matter of remembering where and when I saw everything.

I really want to talk about two things today: first up, the tire side walls. It is very possible that these side walls are the leftovers from the production of homemade fish traps. The ever-creative fishermen of the island have made hundreds if not thousands of these special traps. I am not sure what they are used to catch, mostly because I only see them lying around the fishermen's houses or covering cabbage sprouts in their gardens (to ward off crows) or weighing down the loose sheet metal roof paneling on their sheds! I am not sure if they use them much anymore for their intended purpose. Anyway, they cut both side walls off a tire and are left with a tall rubber ring. This is then sliced two or three times through to produce several thinner rings. Then, three or four bamboo slats are bent and attached to each individual ring creating a bell shape. This contraption is then covered with a net and everything is tied together. I am not sure how they are deployed after that.

The nets used are inevitably made of plastic and tires will probably last forever. All the stuff may be broken down into smaller and smaller bits by the tide and constant weathering by wind and wave, but it will remain molecularly the same plastic or rubber no matter the size. The tiniest particles will then become a danger for the tiniest organisms which may consume them in the course of intaking their regular food sources. Then as bigger species feed upon them, the amounts of rubbish and toxins from a bunch of littler organisms are concentrated in the bigger ones. This dynamic accumulation happens all the way up the food chain, and when humans and other apex predators consume these toxic organisms they too become polluted.

Finally, the things that got me most excited today were the seed packages. These illustrate two points that I find rather poignant: this simple little envelope contains a metal foil lining, paper construction and plastic outer coating, not to mention the inks and glues and other chemicals used in their manufacture. Most people rip open the package, plant their seed and mindlessly drop the envelop in their field, either to get buried and leach toxins in situ or to be blown away to litter my fields! There are many modern consumer products that now combine two or more different materials. They provide superior preservation and cost efficiencies for the producer but are a nightmare to separate and recycle. A common culprit are tetra pak beverage packages, of which we ourselves are guilty of consuming several liters' worth per week. These end up in our burnable garbage as there is no recyclig capacity in our entire region for such combined materials.

The second point, is a positive one, for a change! The seed packages belie a sense of greening up the island with an edible landscape. However, the fact that nearly everyone buys and import seeds and seedlings every year indicates means that hardly anyone, if anyone at all, is saving seeds. Most of the annual vegetable seeds sold in Japan are imported from the US or Europe, with some from Southeast Asia and South America. Even for the most Japanese of veggies like hakusai (napa cabbage) the seeds oftern come from Italy, and kabocha pumpkin seeds may come from Mexico! Aside form alleviating the need to burn fossil fuels to ship seeds around the world, if we can grow a vegetable and save the seeds form our own crop, then plant those seeds the next season and the next and the next, we can develop a crop suited to our soil, climate and region. We wouldn't have to rely on imported seeds and our crops would be healthier and more resilient.

So, what I can envision for Ajishima is the following: a seed saving coop of sorts. I would eventually love for this to grow into a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, but in the beginning, if we save our seeds and share them around the island, and continue this season to season, we can save money and resources and produce the heartiest and healthiest food possible. I am inspired by our Permaculture teachers at Shantikuti in Nagano Prefecture, who have established a local seed bank and a beautiful place to store the seeds as well. Plus, the whole idea of seeds, and saving seeds, and growing from seeds all tie into our intended life here on Dream Seed Farms. So, come plant your own Dream Seed with us!

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 11

1/25/2013

Rick's got a new bag of tricks...

The trick is, DON'T LITTER! Today's finds hold some startling surprises.

Tire (second one so far!)
Plastic bottles
Plastic fertilizer bag full of hundreds of flattened cans
Two fertilizer bags; white one with broken glass inside, yellow one originally empty
Pair of cotton work gloves
Blue glass flower vase
Broken dishes
Heaps of plastic food wrappers and packaging
Plastic flower pot
Plastic shopping bag
Yellow apple/pineapple cutter/corer
Plastic broom

It is getting increasing difficult to find trash near our house. Every time I go out to gather up garbage I find something immediately in front of our house, either freshly discarded, blown in by the wind or uncovered by the wind, but there is less and less everyday. I have to walk a bit further everyday. Today I took a path deep into the woods and filled my backpack basket up almost before I even got to the trailhead. Once I walked in a ways, I saw a staggering amount of plastic scraps all over. Thankfully, I also found several bags, old fertilizer bags and shopping bags, which I summarily stuffed full of other garbage.

I had our dogs with me, and while trying to carry all the bags and manage their leashes, I fumbled Manju's line and he ran off into the woods. I had to set down the bags and secure Smoochie and go in after him. He led me on wild goose chase through the woods, but to my surprise stopped just next to a huge pile of trash.

A smashed up refrigerator and a mystery bag. How do you teach a dog to fetch those?

I am not sure if Manju was helping me out, but it was awesome that he led me to so much stuff. I was only able to take the bag as I still had all of my other trash and backpack waiting in the clearing. I will have to go back for the refrigerator bits later.

Once I got home and started sorting the trash for a picture, I realized what was in the fertilizer bag: hundreds of flattened soft drink cans and even some paint cans. This means that someone took the time to crush hundreds of cans and place them in a plastic bag. Perhaps they were getting ready to recycle them properly, but somehow they ended up walking deep into the woods, carrying the bag much farther than they would have had to if they would have taken it to the nearest collection point instead.

The good thing, though, is that it was already bagged and easy for me to carry out of the woods. If only all the litterbugs on the island would be this courteous!!!

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 10

1/24/2013

Déjà vu! Haven't we seen those pink plastic bins before?

Today's catch has been the most voluminous so far. The green tarp is double the spread I usually use.

Broken roof tiles
Bundles of plastic rods, bamboo, plastic coated bamboo, aluminum window
frames, plastic rope, wooden posts, plastic brooms and brushes, mats
Pink container (reused) full of wooden garden stakes ensnarled in plastic coated
metal wire
Blue basket of more stakes
Pink container (reused) with stakes, beer bottles and plastic sheeting
Blue corrugated steel sheet

I found so much junk today in such a small space, and that is because someone assembled all this junk together vertically. There were many old aluminum window frames taped and tied together, staked into the ground with bamboo poles woven in and tied on to make some kind of fence. It took me a while to break it down and haul it out. I tied all the long pieces together to make it easier to carry.

The bamboo is compostable, as are the wooden garden stakes, but the plastic coated wire holding them together is not. These were buried half way in the ground as were the beer bottles, plastic sheeting, corrugated steel and roof tiles. I think someone tried to make a retaining wall of garbage near the garbage fence.

I think I am beginning to understand why so much garbage ends up in the landscape. There may be many motivators but perhaps the main one is the fact that it is easier to throw broken appliances, tools, dishes, clothes, old food, and random junk out the back door than it is to make sure it leaves the island in the appropriate manner. It is easier to litter than separate burnable from non-burnable garbage and to bag up glass bottles and can and plastic bottles in separate bags for recycling. Plus the island-wide garbage pick up is twice a week and recycling is once per month, so it is infinitely easier and more convenient to throw stuff in the woods or ocean whenever it strikes a fancy.

On a positive note, I found a use for the pink plastic storage bins from a few days ago. I haven't decided if I will keep them or ultimately toss them in the dump, but at least in the meantime I can repurpose them for collecting even more garbage. Hooray!

Ajishima Clean Up - The Dump

1/23/2013

Where does the Lone Ranger take his garbage? To the dump to the dump to the dump dump dump...

As promised, here is the picture of the temporary dump in the center of the island. We also have a second dump at the port, which is a staging area for loading garbage from the first dump onto the garbage barge.

I took this picture this morning. The majority of junk here is from houses that have been demolished over the past several months. This heap is much much smaller now than at the peak of demolitions last summer. At that time, it filled the entire space in the foreground of this picture and all the space outside the frame. It was about twenty times the volume of the current mound and piled twice as high.

Most of this was and is from houses torn down with steam shovels. If a crew of people were able to dismantle bits and pieces from an old house, there would be so much good, reusable material for all kinds of building projects around the island. But, as it is, once the machines roll onto a site, they just smash everything to smithereens. Anything useful is shattered into splinters, shards and dust. I have tried to salvage as much stuff as possible, but we are lacking in transport capacity and storage space. I feel we have squandered a phenomenal opportunity to repurpose these old materials.

I hope going forward we can help create a community that values the marginal. I think that we can build a model community on Ajishima that can be the heart and soul of the rebirth and regrowth of the Tohoku region. Will you join us?

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 9

1/23/2013

A veritable smörgåsbord of junk

Today's collection came from a couple places I have already cleaned up once before (i.e. people have littered there again), plus some bits from the shore:

Two big glass buoys
Two small glass buoys
Fiberglass boat hull section
Bottles and cans
Seaweed jelly noodles (double pack food container)
Extension cord
Pickax head
Plastic shopping bag full of random garbage
One C cell battery
Tattered canvas scrap with grommets
Assorted food/sweets wrappers, paper, cigarette butts, plastic scraps
Big window pane shard
Empty plastic sandbag

The plastic shopping bag full of random garbage is baffling to me. It was tied to an iron stake down by the shore. Someone intentionally filled the bag with garbage (from their home or from the landscape?) and then tied it up and left it. It made my job easier, though!

The pickax is a great, but not uncommon, find. In the past, I have come across all kinds of tools all over the island. People must have either forgotten them in their gardens, or left them at a work site so they wouldn't have to carry back and forth everyday, only to forget or abandon them in the end. Most of the tools have rotted wooden handles, that can easily be replace, and are covered in rust. However, they are still absolutely useful. Maybe we can use this pickax to break ground on our buoy-windowed dream house (keep reading)!

I would like to make a distinction between disaster debris and just plain old garbage strewn about the island. The boat hull section and possibly the canvas scrap were the only things that may have been brought ashore during the tsunami. Everything else is garbage that my neighbors have chosen to throw away in the forests, fields and sea around Ajishima.

Finally, I have a confession to make: I LOVE glass buoys. I think they are the coolest thing. I have been collecting them from all over the island since we moved here. I have in my mind a design for a house we would like to build once we have our own piece of land. It would be a small space with walls made of earth and there would be dozens of glass buoys embedded within as windows. So, needless to say, today's buoys are definite keepers and we will be able to easily repurpose these. The coolest thing is when I found the two big ones an islander was watching and later came over and gave me the two small ones. Maybe we can set a precedent and others will start pitching in too.

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 8 - Rainy Day Edition

1/21/2013

It is raining cats and dogs today!

This phrase provides the perfect segue for today's post. Since it is raining and really unpleasant to be out traipsing around the woods picking up other people's trash, I would like to highlight one of the projects we have done in the past before we even started the Ajishima Clean Up challenge.

Presenting the Driftwood Doggy Duplex

Soon after the disaster two years ago, we started collecting all kinds of useful stuff that was washing up on the beaches. We were often rushing ahead of the burn crews, described yesterday, incinerating everything that washed ashore. Amongst the best finds were a host of shipping pallets, a bunch of plastic buoys and five bottles of booze!

From driftwood to the dump, we scavenged all the necessary components (except nails and screws from the mainland hardware store) for a nice cozy Driftwood Doggy Duplex for the new canine friends we adopted at the end of last year. Here are some pics showing the construction process:

Pallets: the poor man's dimensional lumber!

Isn't it funny how seemingly disparate parts often fit together perfectly

Styrofoam box top insulation, and broken bits in bags to fill in the voids

The roof size was limited by the available wooden planks

Siding is likely offcuts from disaster renovations I found at the dump

The pièce de résistance: self-watering, self-cleaning doggy water bowl / downspout combo

I have had a dilemma in my own mind over using the things we find on the shore and at the dump. Obviously, these items were once in someone's home, integral parts of their daily lives. I have convinced myself that by reclaiming wreckage from the disaster and repurposing it, we are creating something peaceful and practical from the chaos and carnage. I hope it does not offend anyone to put these things to use, rather than have them rot on the shore or be burned away. We are grateful for each and every scrap that has come our way and hope that we are doing it justice and giving all the embodied energy within it new life.

If the overhang was a skosh bigger, we could all have a picnic under there

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 7 - Week 1 - Special Edition!

1/21/2013

One mean motor scooter!

Today's list is short and sweet:

One 50cc baby blue motor scooter

In yesterday's post about toilet seats, I mentioned that the commodes ended up elsewhere, while I saved several seats for a future project. This scooter is headed to the same place.

I have even found old cars out in the woods, but I cannot lift them into a truck by myself...

I do not have a picture yet (I will post one soon), but the garbage I collect over the next month that cannot be repaired, reused, repurposed or recycled is ending up in an impromptu dump in the center of the island. After the disaster two years ago, heaps of debris started washing up on shore all around the island. At first, some islanders gathered it up and burned it all right on the spot. But, eventually there was so much washing ashore everyday that they could not keep up. They began gathering it up with big construction machinery and hauling it to a wide open field in the center of the island.

Over the summer of last year a private contractor was hired by the prefectural or national government to gather up the rest of the tsunami debris and to also tear down those houses damaged by the earthquakes. They piled up a gigantic mountain of trash and then hauled it in dump trucks little by little to the port and loaded it onto a huge garbage barge that sailed for Ishinomaki City on the mainland. From there it was distributed around the country to be sorted at various garbage processing centers and eventually to be recycled (metals: like parts of today's scooter), incinerated (all burnables, plastics and organic matter: like all the food and sweets wrappers) or dumped in the ocean (everything else: like the toilet commodes).

The demolition crew took an early winter break and are now back on the island to finish tearing down several old houses. So, at this point for about the next month or so until they are finished and the last barge sails away, I have access to the dump. I am bringing all the junk I find but cannot use to the dump. And, once there, I am desperately searching for anything of potential use. I have rescued all kinds of great and useful materials from the shores and dump over the past two years. I will blog about them later on, maybe when it rains/snows and I cannot get out for my daily garbage clean up!

The majority of the garbage I am gathering was here long before the disaster. But, it is exactly because of the disaster that we have the opportunity to rid the island of as much junk as possible. After the effort I put in to dragging the scooter out of the forest and lifting it into the back of the truck all by myself, I do, however, doubt that I will have much overall impact. The demolition crew is here for the old houses, not the old junk littered about by the people of those households. Once the last garbage barge sets sail, it will be infinitely more difficult and expensive to take care of all the scattered junk. I will do the best I can, because that is all I can do.

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 6

1/19/2013

It was pretty crappy of whoever threw out all these toilet seats!

Yes, I know what you are thinking. And, yes, that is a basket full of toilet seats. But wait there's more...

6 slightly used toilet seats with hardware
One plastic motor oil bucket
3 storage bins
2 storage bin lids
A bit of rope
A rotting wicker basket (to transport said toilet seats)

With the exception of the handle on the bucket and maybe a few screws in the seats, every item today is a big solid piece of plastic. The six toilet seats were attached to toilets, of all things. Actually, there were about a dozen toilets altogether, but not all of the seats survived being thrown about. Most of the commodes were damaged and too heavy for me to carry (I'll explain what happened to them in a later post), so I salvaged the good seats and the hardware from the broken seats.

I have been working on a plan for a bank of compost toilets that I would like to build. We may be able to set up a campground near Aji beach (on the other side of the island) later this year. Hopefully, that will help attract more visitors to the island. If they do come, then they will need facilities too. And building and connecting regular pit or flush toilets to the mains would be expensive and pointless because all of the human waste from the island either gets hauled off the island by a honeysucker truck or ends up out in the ocean. If we build a smart compost toilet, it will handle everyone's poop and recycle the nutrients back to the environment, and save it from going places it shouldn't.

Source: humanurehandbook.com

We could make our toilets very simple like the bucket-in-a-box loveable loos designed by the folks at Humanure Handbook, or we could build something grandiose and inspirational like the ones I used while studying Permaculture at Milkwood Farm in Australia.

Source: milkwood.net

But, it will take awhile to find a suitable parcel of land and to get approval for a campground, so I can just daydream about compost toilets for now (is that normal?) For now, though, I did have a pressing need of...you guessed it: another toilet!

A little too small for me, but perfect for our canine friends!

Just after I gathered up today's garbage, I decided to turn one piece of trash into a real treasure. We are house-training our new puppies now, and we have been thinking about ordering a special plastic mat with plastic mesh over it. I actually ordered it online this morning before I headed outside. Once I had these storage bins before me I realized that I could make my own doggie toilet, and I cancelled my order. I then located a piece of aluminum mesh that I gathered from the disaster debris last year, and cut it to go in one of the bins. Perfect fit! Right now we have what essentially amounts to a flat-diaper-sheet for dogs, but they are just as un-biodegradable as regular baby diapers, so we will be replacing them with some kind of washable material. We do not have a humanure compost toilet at our new house for ourselves yet, but our doggies have been pitching in for our compost for a while now (well, I pick it up and pitch it in the bin!) and when they are outside all the plants and trees in our yard get a nice nutrient package delivered right above their roots.

Human waste is something that we don't often think about; where it goes, what happens to it, is there any inherent value in it, etc. Most waste has the potential to be useful and utilizable by something else if it is put into a different situation. Hopefully, over the course of the next month, I will be able to find ways to utilize more of the stuff I find scattered about our island.

In the end, you could say this post is full of shit. And, you would be right!!!

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 5

1/18/2013

A day at the beach?

Not quite the beach, but the first time I have been to the port this week. Half of the following stuff came from a simple walk along the road only one minute long. The other half washed up onto the docks during high tide yesterday. Ajishima sank 1.2 meters (just about 4ft.) into the sea because of the earthquake two years ago. We lost a lot of beachfront, and most of our docks are under water when the tide rises.

On to the spoils (so to speak):

One glove
One sock
One size 24 white plastic boot
Bottles and cans (including bleach and surfactant-containing soap bottles & spray
paint can)
One pull tab (soda or beer?)
One D cell battery (mostly disintegrated)
Cigarette lighter
Cigarette butts
Cigarette packaging
One onion
One grapefruit
Grinding wheel for disc sander/grinder
2-3 meters rusty chain
Styrofoam
Plastic packaging, food/sweets wrappers
Fish trap

I mentioned assembling a scarecrow from some rubbish in yesterday's post, but I decided to not put the plastic hardhat in our garden. Now, I have another glove, a sock and a boot to boot! They are all synthetic, and will not decompose but will off-gas and leach their components, so I do not want to keep them around anyplace where we grow our food.

Most of the folks on the island smoke, so it should be no surprise that I found cigarette paraphernalia scattered about. Also, I finally found a pull tab. With as many old beer and soda cans as there are in the forests, fields and sea here, I am sure there is a mountain of pull tabs somewhere to be found!

The onion and grapefruit washed up on the dock. They were frozen overnight and thawed by this afternoon's sun. The crows had a sample of the citrus, but otherwise they would sit untouched and attract flies once it warms up. This brings up two issues: wasting food, and proper disposal of food waste. Wasting food is all too common, and good food is thrown out (the back door and/or into the sea, as the case may be) to make room for an endless supply of even newer food sent to the island by ferry. If food waste (kitchen scraps, overripe garden produce, etc.; as differentiated from wasting food) is properly disposed of by means of composting, it limits exposure to pests (crows, flies, etc.) and limits their numbers from growing. It also creates a nutrient rich compost that can be added back to the garden to grow more food!

The black cone shaped item in the middle is a plastic fish trap. As the majority of Ajishima's population are fishermen, there are thousands of traps in all shapes and sizes immediately around our island. A fish trap traps fish even if there is no one there to check it. Once they break free from the massive nets and lines holding them in the water, they may wash ashore where they then can trap all manner of birds and mammals.

The little brown glass bottles are another addiction run rampant: energy drinks that are chock full of sugar and nicotine to keep their exhausted consumers coming back for more! I recycled all the bottles and cans except the biggest of the brown bottles. I think it will make a nice flower vase. I want to try to find value in as much of the junk here as possible. It all has an inherent value, but loses points when it is disposed of in the wrong place and manner.

Finally, the two identical greenish cans in the middle of the bottom row present a mind boggling conundrum: these are cans of water first helicoptered in, and then ferried in, to the islanders as disaster relief supplies after the tsunami two years ago (and still ongoing). These cans would not now be polluting the environment if there would not have been a disaster. The impact of a natural, uncontrollable event is now compounded by the active choice people make to toss their empty cans (among other garbage) into the sea. I, just moments ago, came across an article about tsunami debris washing up on the west coast of the US that sums this all up much better than I can: "To the extent we can keep regular forms of ocean trash out of the ocean, in the face of disasters, the ocean becomes more resilient and better equipped to deal with the debris."

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 4

1/18/2013

Do you know the old saying, "One person's trash is another person's treasure?" Well in this case most of my island neighbors' trash becomes my trash too in the end, with the rare few exceptions.

I gathered the following at the cemetery near our house:

Styrofoam
Bottles and cans, just clap your hands, just clap your hands!
Toaster oven without a body (someone on the island either really likes toast or
really likes killing toaster ovens)
Sundry plastic bits and bags
Two black plastic seedling pots
Yellow hardhat
Rain gutter downspout connector
Stove pipes

I got really super excited about one of these items, and no, it is not the idea of cobbling together a frankenstein-esque toaster (frankentoaster!?) over the next month, but it is the stove pipes, and it does have to do with an oven of sorts. I have been thinking of building an outdoor kitchen once it warms here, and the centerpiece will likely be something called a barrel oven, and I now have the flue materials. Yay!

The plastic seedling pots are another epidemic here on the island. Most all of the islanders have there own veggie gardens, which is great, but most all of them buy seedlings from the mainland and have them ferried in. All the seedlings come in these plastic pots and once the plant is in the ground the pots are thrown on top of the ground. The wind then blows them all around the island and somehow an inordinate number end up in our garden! I can and have saved and resused them in the past, but it begs the question, what eventually happens to them I am done using them?

Finally, I found a glove yesterday and a helmet today. I have visions now of stitching together a scarecrow (and we have lots of crows; they are the apex predator on the island) of all the odd scraps of cloth I know are out in the forests and fields, with a crusty yellow hardhat on top. But, again, what do I do with the plastic hardhat once it has outlived the life of the rest of the parts of my scarecrow?

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 3

1/17/2013

Day 3 brought about a profound revelation (hint: it's the bamboo basket/backpack thingy)

Today I realized that there is way more trash scattered about our island than I originally thought. I felt we were swimming in trash. As it turns out, we are drowning in it! Before I set out today I pondered Day 2's haul and came to the realization that I needed some kind of container to carry a more significant amount of trash. I can't fit a car tire in it, but the bamboo basket with shoulder straps that is at the height of garden-going-grandma fashion on the island can accommodate a boat load (well, not quite, but it will add up over a month's time).

Today's catch:
Three partial sheets corrugated steel siding/roofing (buried in my backyard)
A once-snazzy lime green toaster oven (door included; imagine if the oven
   matched to door from yesterday!)
One D cell battery
Assorted glass bottles
Assorted plastic bottles
Assorted cans (many with old-fashioned pull tabs)
Styrofoam
Broken dishes (which actually account for a sizable chunk of aggregate in most
   of our veggie gardens here)
All kinds of food and sweets wrappers, plastic shopping bags, random plastic
   bits, etc...

With this hip gear, I look good while doing good!!!

I had three helpers today. Michie, Manju and Smoochie. Michie is the only one who really contributed, but Smoochie did clean out a can of beans for me! Manju just cowered behind Michie, because he is afraid of bamboo baskets apparently, and people, and cars, and birds, and leaves, and the post office, and the wind, and and and...

If it still has anything delicious in it, Smoochie is bound to sniff it out!

The bamboo basket came with the house we moved into this summer. I love the juxtaposition of a traditional hand woven bamboo basket with hand rolled hemp rope straps holding all the mass produced, mass consumed, mass disposed of junk. Halfway through today's junket (see what I did there!?) the only downside to the basket became apparent as I tossed in a coffee can: some mud leaked out and splashed through the weave and all down my back. I had to wash my clothes when I got home, but lesson learned. Tomorrow there will be a plastic trash bag liner and cardboard hole-poking deflectors all around the inside. Live and learn!

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 2

1/16/2013

Lots of plastic, styrofoam and metals, and one very cliché tire

Here is today's haul. I gathered this up while out walking the dogs. I could reach all of this while still standing on the road. On the short path that winds around the area near our house there are still days, if not weeks, of garbage left for me to pick up, without ever having to venture of the pavement (I can see so much more just through the trees, but tackling the amount of trash dumped in the forests will take a bit more planning and preparation). I could not carry anymore, and actually had to go back for the tire! I think I will list the most prevalent items and then comment on some of them afterwards. (The green tarp is mine, and makes sorting and cleaning up easier...)

Household wiring
Rusted out curtain rods with only plastic coating remaining
Plastic PET water bottles
Glass sake bottles
Old pull tab beer cans
New beer can
Dozens and dozens of food and sweets wrappers
Blue plastic fertilizer bag
Cardboard
Newspaper
Styrofoam

I first sorted the bottles and cans and will recycle them through the island's monthly pick-up schedule. The newspaper and cardboard, while not necessarily bad for the environment are an eyesore and in sufficient quantities can still cause problems. I put these in our compost bin and this extra dose of carbon will go nicely with a pile of nitrogen-rich kitchen scraps. The styrofoam all came from larger styrofoam boxes that are used to ship the fish caught by the island's fishermen to the mainland, and to ship (hopefully, different) fish and other supplies from the mainland back to the island. Finally, the beer cans point to several issues, one being the much beloved island pastime of drunk-driving-then-tossing-empties-out-the-window, and the fact that the pull tab cans may be older than I am. This means that people have been littering all over the island for decades and that it is a habit ingrained into each and every successive generation.

Breaking this habit won't be easy, but hopefully we can initiate a dialogue about how we manage our waste on the island.

One sweet old lady stopped me on the way home and asked me why I was carrying so much garbage. I told her what I was doing and she got a sparkle in her eye and shot out a beaming smile. I would call that a success, and reward enough to bring a smile to a little old lady's face!

Ajishima Clean Up - Day 1

1/15/2013

The Height of Retaining Wall Technology - Toaster Oven Doors and Plastic Wall Clocks

Today marks the first day of a month long effort to clean up our island. I have challenged myself to collect a mountain of garbage from all over Ajishima in an attempt to fund raise for an Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) course I have enrolled in this February with the Konohana Family. Check out my fund raising page to learn more about all this and to find out how to support the rebirth and regrowth of Ajishima.

You could say the theme of today's haul is: "Not in my Backyard!" Actually, due to several days of frost much of the weed coverage in our yard has died back exposing a winding path of garbage half buried into the side of a garden bed (it was so lush from summer until now, that I could not see it though it is right out our door!). The previous owner dug out a trench and threw a bunch of trash in as a retaining wall. My personal favorite is actually a tie between the toaster oven door and the plastic wall clock stuck at 12:21. Is it AM or PM? Who knows!? That is part of the charm!

Anyway, our island is covered with trash. For generations all resources that did not naturally occur on Ajishima had to be shipped in by ferry at high costs, both for transport and for the environmental impact of fuel consumption for that transport. Some waste like household garbage and some recyclable bottles and cans are shipped off the island weekly while other waste like old appliances, plastics of all shapes and sizes, furniture, building material scraps, nonburnable garbage, car batteries and even cars are dumped randomly in the fields, forests and sea because the cost of removing them from the island is too high.

My goal is to collect as much garbage as possible up until the day I leave for my EDE course. In the process I hope to start a dialogue with the islanders about possible alternatives to generating and improperly disposing of so much waste.

Ultimately, we are hoping to establish an ecovillage or some kind of intentional community on Ajishima. Along the way, we will have to address the challenges of living on an island. Chief among them are the import of resources and the export of waste. We will have to develop ways to produce more of what we need ourselves on the island (for example, we could grow rice as a food source but also as a supply of straw for garden mulch and even building components like straw bales for super-insulated walls) and find value in the waste that we either export or choose to pollute the environment with (for example, separating food and paper waste and composting it and returning those nutrients to our gardens, fields and forests).

So, check back in everyday to see what kind of amazing and possibly baffling things I discover while cleaning up Ajishima.

Thank you for your support and encouragement. Please come and visit us on the island anytime!