Every day, approximately five produce delivery trucks roll through the alleyway past my home. They're bringing tomatoes from California, bananas from Ecuador, apples, mushrooms, and carrots from the U.S. I live in Ontario, Canada, where farmers produce all of these things and more with the exception of bananas, of course.
But the point is, if most of these foods are readily available locally, why are they being shipped in from far away? And the issue is not limited to food: almost every single item in my apartment came from somewhere outside of Ontario. There must be a way for us to live without sending so many trucks, ships and planes so many miles back and forth across the globe. I spoke with Zachrey Helmberger and Caroline Barry, two people who are making a commitment to self-sufficiency.Helmberger lives with his partner in the Greater World subdivision outside of Taos, New Mexico a colony of earthships, designed to produce their own water, power, heat, and at least some of their own food. Barry is the proud owner and builder of the first straw bale and cordwood house in the UK, on her farm, Brook Farm. Both participated in the building of their homes, both of which were built using mainly recycled materials. Earthships An earthship's structural walls are built using rubber automobile tires, which are lined with used cardboard, rammed with earth (found at any construction site), and stacked like bricks. Gaps are filled in with dirt and empty bottles or cans, and the resulting wall is nearly indestructible. Interior and non-load-bearing walls are made using cement and empty bottles or cans, which have no particular structural value but help to keep the amount of cement to a minimum. Brainchild of Michael Reynolds, earthships can be adapted to a variety of climates any climate, boasts the website and are designed to use minimal or no public utilities. A pre-packaged earthship can be bought, with anywhere from one to five acres of land, for between $25 000 and $100 000 U.S. it's more if you want to customize.
Photovoltaic (solar) panels and a wind turbine meet the home's electricity needs, which are kept to a minimum by berming (building a wall of earth up over all but the south-facing wall, with a thermal wrap in between). An earthship requires no electricity or gas to stay warm or cool it uses passive solar heating and air exchanger tubes that bring cool air in from deep in the ground. The electricity that is produced from the sun and wind is collected in a battery and the house is wired using conventional wiring and circuit breakers. Rain and snow are collected from the roof and stored in a cistern, from where the water goes through four phases of re-use. It comes out of a faucet, waste water from there goes into botanical cells to be cleaned and to water the plants. It is then routed to flush the toilet, and from there passes through a treatment system and is used again in another botanical cell. Straw Bales Straw bale insulation dates back to the 19th-century American prairies, and is experiencing a resurgence in popularity around the world among environmentally-conscious homeowners. Barry's house also incorporates cordwood, approximately 2-foot-long logs. She used a second-hand frame, locally-bought cordwood, recycled fence posts, empty wine bottles, and automobile tires instead of a concrete foundation. She also gets her power from solar panels and a wind turbine, which is stored in batteries and can power her lights, radio, TV, tapes, and laptop.
Straw is a waste product the stems from the harvest of barley, corn, or wheat, among other crops. It is highly durable and farmers typically bale it themselves. Bales are stacked like bricks or Lego, as Barry put it in a timber frame, and the labour can all be done by the homeowner, with a few friends to speed it along. Tests in the U.S. and Canada have shown that straw bale homes have double the insulation rating of a typical frame house, and surprisingly, if they catch fire they are slower to burn. Straw bales are also much less expensive than conventional, pre-fabricated building materials. It cost Barry a total of £15 000 to build her home. So we have two examples of off-the-grid homes that don't compromise comfort and don't cost a fortune. But where do these two get their food and income? Food and Employment Greater World is a subdivision. Like any subdivision of any town or city, its residents commute to work every day. Although Helmberger finds he can make a living helping with construction, maintenance, and improvements in the community itself, most people have cars. As for food production, he says I've calculated that it would take about 100 000 gallons of water to produce a nutritionally complete diet for two people for one year. That amount of water does pass through our 3-acre lot in some years. But how do you store it? Residents are working on developing better water storage systems to make more efficient use of what rainwater they get it is in the desert, after all but for now, apart from some vegetables, food has to come from outside. Barry supports herself with events and courses that she runs on her farm to educate people about permaculture and sustainable living as well as with produce from the farm itself, and a small disability benefit from the government. The courses cover everything from making a composting toilet to producing elderberry wine. She grows most of her own vegetables, eats seasonally, and buys everything she needs locally, including at an organic co-op in nearby Butleigh. It takes some work and a considerable amount of commitment to live this way, but it's certainly not impossible. And as she reminded me, there are many small contributions everyone can make to living more sustainably, without going the whole way: use less water, turn off the lights you don't need, don't use standby, make each trip in your car multi-purpose. Urban Sustainability It is certainly easier to be self-sufficient in rural settings, where there is more land, farms close by, more access to sunlight, and so on. But city-dwellers, don't despair! Michael Reynolds can retrofit an existing house to become completely or mostly off-the-grid: look him up at www.earthshipbiotecture.com. A good resource for tips on making urban communities more sustainable is the Smart Growth B.C. tool kit, which you can find at www.smarthgrowthbc.ca; also check out www.nbhub.org. Ask where your vegetables were grown. Don't run water or leave lights on unneccessarily. Make a community investment in solar panels and sell your excess energy to the government! (The Ontario government will start buying privately-produced electricity in 2007) Let's move forward. Sources
Earthships

• personal communication with Zachrey Helmberger
• www.greaterworld.org
• www.earthship.org
• www.earthshipbiotecture.com
• U.S. Department of Energy (Earth-Sheltered Houses)

Straw Bale housing

• personal communication with Caroline Barry
• www.carolinebarry.org.uk
• www.isleofavalon.co.uk/community/strawbalehouse.html
• www.strawhomes.ca
• www.greenbuilder.com

Sustainable Living

• www.smartgrowthbc.ca
• www.nbhub.org
• flyer from Harbord Residents' Association (Toronto) regarding bulk purchase of solar panels