Off the grid...

We just came from spending a few days at Earthaven (www.earthaven.org), a developing ecovillage near Asheville, NC, at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. This community of approximately 65 members is entirely off the grid - all of their electricity is generated through solar, hydro or human power (see photo at right- you rock, Tony!!!). They obtain their water from a nearby spring and almost all their toilets are composting.

Earthaven is a great demonstration center for natural buildings; members' homes are either strawbale, earthship, cob, clay slip or made mostly of recycled materials. More than that, the community is "art in process", as one member described. Aesthetically, it is an incredibly beautiful community with painstaking thought put into the design and sculpture of the houses. In fact, there are times when you feel like you've landed in some fantasyland with names for neighborhoods and houses like Hut Hamlet, White Owl Lodge, Hobbit House, Village Terraces and Council Hall. There's even a labyrinth with a crystal...It conjures up that "other world" experience where you feel stuck in some surreal human experiment at the edge of the planet...

I'm exaggerating of course but being at Earthaven certainly tested the limits of our comfort zone, especially with regards to human waste. As far as I understand, although I would like to read the Humanure Handbook to be certain, composting toilets are legally required to be outside of a building. At Earthaven, they are usually located near buildings/houses and look like a standard outhouse. However, the compost toilet itself has a separate place where the urine goes and a barrel where the feces are deposited. Since this whole operation is outside, Erin and I were presented on our first night with a typical plastic yogurt container with lid to pee in at night, should the need arise. This, of course, is a smart idea, far superior to stumbling outside in the dark at two in the morning at 28 degrees Fahrenheit, trying to find an appropriate place to pee.

Yet, I'm not sure if I'm up for doing it all the time. Each morning, I ceremoniously tromped outside with a full yogurt container of my own urine and attempted to find a discreet place in the garden to dump it. Don't get me wrong, we are resilient, adaptable creatures but these practices of pooping in a barrel and peeing in a yogurt container are not going to fly very well in the mainstream. We are used to flushing away our waste, not having it stare us in the face every time we flip up the toilet seat. I'm all for composting toilets, though. It's unconscionable that we contaminate potable water with feces and urine and flush it away. However, if we are going to sell sustainability to the masses, we can't ask Mrs. Jones to pee in a yogurt container on a regular basis, even if it's of the Horizon, organic low-fat French vanilla variety.

To deal with this issue, a couple of members are putting flush toilets in their houses so that they are "up to code". More than anything, it's to prove that sustainable, eco-friendly houses are possible and that techniques illustrated at Earthaven can be replicated in the mainstream. A part of me thinks this is selling out, another part of me thinks it's simply being realistic.

I'm afraid that there are no juicy stories from this commmunity. Although I did meet a person named Kimchee, our evenings were filled with conversation around the wood stove about peak oil and sustainability, a few games of dominoes and a revival of the 1995 game, Jenga, in an altered form. The possibilities are simply endless in an ecovillage...

Kareen