Planning Pool

Catawba County and University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) are collaborating on an eco-industrial park on the Blackburn Landfill in North Carolina.

Experiments are slated to start in a few months to test the site’’s integrated systems. The facility, named Catawba EcoComplex, hosts a number of facilities where the idea of “waste = food” reigns. In other words, wastes from some processes become feedstock for others.

Right now, the complex hosts a landfill, a landfill gas-to-energy facility, a lumber processor, a pallet manufacturer, sunflower and canola biofuels farms, and a cooperative farm. Catawba County is hoping to add a biosolids processing facility, a greywater processing system, waste-powered steam facility, plastics recycling facility, and an algae research center. The County also forsees developing a smart-grid education center, brick manufacturing, industrial composting, a greenhouse, anaerobic digester, and … Continue Reading

From February 1 to 5 , two million American students between kindergarten and grade 12 will be involved in environmental education programs as part of National Green Week. While National Green Week is a great program, sustainability needs to be more than just an addition to the curriculum that is presented by the most progressive teachers!

As community planners can attest, typical community engagement tactics like ye olde open house are not always the most effective in sparking meaningful dialogue, especially for youth. If only there were some relevant discipline that could inspire planners about effectively and equitably engaging young people!

Today’s blog post comes to you (more or less) live from a lecture at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Sandra Weber, an Education researcher, is speaking about her work engaging and empowering teenaged mothers and mothers-to-be in Montreal as part of Project M.O.M. (Mirrors of Motherhood).

Creative Commons photo (not from Project M.O.M.) from the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland.

The participants were young … Continue Reading

Last March, as part of the SCARP Symposium on Sustainability, Adam Kumbede Education Programme Coordinator of Check Your Head (www.checkyourhead.org) joined other food activists to share his ideas on the subject of Food Sovereignty, embracing the question, “How are we in Metro Vancouver planning for systems that support the production of healthy and culturally appropriate food using ecologically sound and sustainable methods? What does a just urban food system look like?” Following the session, Adam took a few moments to speak about his work with Check Your Head:

Planning Pool’s Interview with Adam of Check Your Head Youth Education from Planning Pool on Vimeo.

Bursting with a few cameras, a laptop and a pile of other gizmos, I lugged my backpack onto the bus this morning, where I sat down and pointed my iPhone browser to the New York Times. With embarrassment, I began reading an article on Anne Leonard’s “Story of Stuff”, a 20 minute film that addresses this fetish many of us seem to have for the things that we consume.

One of the first example she brings up is the iPod. Ouch.

Warning the audience against the hazard of depending on linear production and manufacturing systems in a finite world, there isn’t much here that most ecologists don’t already know. But they aren’t the intended audience – the film is spreading like wildfire across grade schools across the US, with educators clambering to get it into their classrooms.

It’s a pretty inspiring use … Continue Reading