{"id":13800,"date":"2011-11-10T15:14:03","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T21:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sustainablog.org\/?p=13800"},"modified":"2011-11-10T15:14:03","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T21:14:03","slug":"could-the-kitchen-of-the-future-run-on-kitchen-waste-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/could-the-kitchen-of-the-future-run-on-kitchen-waste-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Could the Kitchen of the Future Run on Kitchen Waste Alone?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n Ideas are where all innovation begins. The environment is not only becoming a big part of the public dialogue, it is also fueling research, education, and business. The green job sector is amongst the fastest growing in a fairly unstable and stagnant economy.<\/p>\n The green market is the fastest-growing retail market. A great deal of funding is going towards environmental research, and educational opportunities in the green field are becoming ever more common. The so-called Average Joe can close his solar-powered garage door<\/a> and drive to work in a hybrid or electric vehicle. But some people want to see sustainability, and resource use efficiency, go a bit further.<\/p>\n Today’s society has often been called a “throwaway society.” Whereas we used to have products that were designed to last, and could be repaired, we now live in a society where there are tons of one-time-use products, and it is often cheaper to buy something new <\/em>than it is to fix it.<\/p>\n This is termed a “cradle-to-grave” mentality, whereby we ignore the whole “grave” part. Products are built with a purpose in mind, and when they become obsolete, we throw them away. Where “away” actually is<\/em> does not cross the minds of most people. Most often “away” is a landfill, often already at capacity. These landfills, ironically, are often full of materials that can provide energy or be recycled.<\/p>\n Let’s take the kitchen<\/a> for example. Most of the “waste” in our kitchen could actually be used to create energy and nourish food at a later time. Essentially, waste is food. In a theoretical design, Phillips Design has created what they term a Microbial Kitchen<\/a>. This is a kitchen that runs on its own waste.<\/p>\n The kitchen is outfitted with a bacterially driven “digestive” system, whereby methane gas is created from food scraps in a natural, biological process. What isn’t used for the creation of gas\u00a0(to be used to power kitchen appliances such as a range stove<\/a>), is composted to create rich fertilizer for food crops. The kitchen is also outfitted with a kitchen garden and an interesting alternative to refrigeration.<\/p>\n While this is still mostly conceptual, it is a great way to look at a normally wasteful area of our life — cooking and eating. This “cradle-to-cradle” mentality to the design of the kitchen ensures that anything that can be recycled or used in some way is utilized.<\/p>\n This type of\u00a0kitchen<\/a> shows how maximizing the use of readily available energy can also reduce our waste<\/a>, which often ends up in a landfill. Waste being food is a great concept in sustainability, and it is wonderful to see it getting more play in the actual research and development market.<\/p>\n