Sulabh International Social Service Organisation

Location: India
Year: 1970s- present
Founder: Bindeshwar Pathak

http://www.sulabhinternational.org/st/sulabh_flush_compost_toilet.php

http://www.adb.org/Water/Champions/pathak.asp

In an effort to elevate the social status of the ‘untouchables’ -those scavengers who clean pit latrines- sociologist Bindeshwar Pathak founded the non-governmental organization Sulabh International and created a latrine that is practically maintenance-free. The “eco-friendly, technically appropriate, socio-culturally acceptable and economically affordable” Sulabh Flush Compost Toilet requires only very little water (2 liters) to flush and creates sludge that after 2 years of sitting in an underground pit is turned into manure which can be used as an agricultural fertilizer. Up to date, more than 1,2 million Sulabh toilets have been installed in India.

Sulabh International also prides itself on being the “pioneering organization in the field of biogas generation from public toilet complexes,” treating effluents on site and converting human excreta into biogas that can be used for cooking and lighting. It has constructed 190 biogas plants, whose accompanying community toilets service 250,000 people per day, creating practically 9 million daily square feet of biogas.

The most notable strengths of Sulabh International’s sanitary actions (the organization has since diversified its realms of social involvement) are the large scale at which they have been and continue to be undertaken -primordially in India but recently also in countries such as Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal- as well as the multiple advantages they confer. Not only have they helped liberate 120,000 scavengers from cleaning 13 million latrines throughout India, as well as improved the sanitary conditions of those who use the new toilets, but they provide an important example of sustainable human waste management in developing countries. Dr. Pathak’s technologies and actions have received international recognition, earning him a number of awards including the 2007 Energy Globe Award, the Indira Gandhi Award for Environment, and the Global 500 Roll of Honour Award by UNEP.

The Urban Aquaculture Center

Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Years: 2008-2009

http://urbanaquaculturecenter.com

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/the-urban-aquaculture-center.php

Still in a very initial stage, the Urban Aquaculture Center hopes to expand the practice of aquaculture by installing a 50,000 square feet urban aquaculture production facility, the first of its size and kind in the city of Milwaukee. Holding more than 200,000 gallons of municipal water in 20 large tanks, the indoor space will demonstrate to the public sustainable and highly productive practices such as aquaponics, where the water used in the fish tanks is filtered through edible leafy vegetable plants and then reused by the fish. It will combine this with educational facilities, sustainable farming exhibits, and a restaurant and market both selling locally raised fish, hoping to involve the community in practicing aquaculture at a smaller scale in their homes.

According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the practice of aquaculture “has the greatest potential to meet the growing demand for aquatic food.” One of the strengths of the Urban Aquaculture Center seems to lie in its large-scale vision of serving as a launching point to increase the popularity of aquaculture nation-wide (the United States currently only contributes to 2 percent of worldwide production) as a way of bringing fish production closer to its centers of consumption, contributing to a reduction of carbon emissions and an increased food security. The center envisions having the city of Milwaukee lead the way, capitalizing both on the presence of the successful urban teaching farm Growing Power as well as on its proximity to Lake Michigan. In spite of this exciting vision, it is yet too early to assess the impact this venture will have as it has yet to even install the center.

Organoponicos

Location: Cuba, particularly Havana and Cienfuegos

Years: 1990s-present

http://dp.biology.dal.ca/reports/ztaboulchanas/taboulchanasst.html
http://www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/880/38/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organop%C3%B3nicos

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which had strongly supported Cuba with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and food produce, the Caribbean island experienced a period of food insecurity. Due to the fall in imports, the median daily intake per person fell from 2600 to 1000 calories. Several types of gardens emerged as a response to this situation, most commonly organoponicos, a system of urban organic gardens where fruits and vegetables are grown in a series of raised beds or concrete containers located in vacant lots where the soil is not cultivable due to contamination or poor quality.

Yields in these organic gardens have more than quintupled from 4 to 24 kilograms per squared meter between 1994 and 1999, and currently approximately one million tons of food per year is produced in the organoponicos. Over 87,000 acres of land are being used in urban agriculture in Havana alone, where over 200 organoponicos gardens supply its citizens with more than 90 percent of their fruits and vegetables intake. Another location where this method of urban farming is particularly developed is Cienfuegos, a city with a population of 120,000 which was given the title of urban agriculture capital of Cuba due to its large amount of organoponicos per capita. Most of these gardens are semi-private operations, although all receive state subsidies.

The organoponico system has received international recognition in particular since 1999 when the Swedish Parliament awarded the Cuban Farming Association the Right Livelihood Award –also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. Although it may offer valuable lessons in terms of organic urban farming, the organoponico system may not be completely replicable in other countries due to the strong social control and government subsidies that have contributed to its success in Cuba. The lack of current data also complicates the present assessment of the movement.

Edible Estates

Location: Salina, Kansas; Lakewood, California; Maplewood, New Jersey; London, England; Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; Flintridge, California; Manhattan, New York

Year: 2005-2009
Artist: Fritz Haeg

http://www.fritzhaeg.com/garden/initiatives/edibleestates/main.html

http://www.fritzhaeg.com/edible-estates-book.html

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/globalcities/commissions.shtm

Edible Estates is one of artist and architect Fritz Haeg’s most recent projects, in which he proposed to replace eight front lawns in the United States and London with highly productive edible gardens. This includes the half-lawn half-productive-garden public demonstration garden at La Canada Flintridge, California, with accompanying data comparisons on the water use, chemical needs, and overall production of both spaces, as well as the Lenape Edible Estate in Manhattan, which proposes a reconstruction of the edible plants grown 400 years ago by the Lenape people on the island of Mannahatta. Haeg uses these demonstration acts both political and educational, to reconnect us to the land and the food it produces through small local initiatives, which he then blows up in scale through an intense media exposure campaign.

Although the cooperating families and their neighbors may have been the only ones to experience or see the gardens first hand, Haeg has allowed countless others to be exposed to Edible Estates by exhibiting his work at museums such as Arthouse in Austin, Texas, The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Tate Modern in London among many more. In the spring of 2008 Haeg published with Metropolis Books Edible Estates: Attacks on the Front Lawn, which documents the first four gardens and includes essays notably by himself and author Michael Pollan. An updated edition containing all 8 projects is set to be published in spring of 2010.