A visit in Sambirenteng. Minutes of the meeting on 15 April 2010

Last week a small group of us (Annett, Nyoman, Beate, Johann, Pak Suwenten and me Burgel) went to visit the building site of Holiway in Sambirenteng, north east coast Bali. Thank you Maria and Stefan for inviting us!
It's a large plot of land, a part will be built up with villas and the other part with bungalows. The concept is to create a place for "holidays with sense" in an environment friendly surrounding. Therefor buildings like seminar rooms for different kind of seminar and body work, swimming-pool and installations for waste water treatment and alternative energy are planned.
First we inspected the land protecting wall towards the sea. "Geotextil", a 100 year lasting material, is put in layers in that way, that soil is not washed away (and it even catches sand towards the land). To hold everything large volcanic stones are put to a wall with a slope. It is important to arrange the stones in the right way, then it will last a long long time. No concrete at all is added. For better protection vetiver grass with its very long roots is planted in a long line the whole length of the retaining wall. Hopefully the place is not too salty for this excellent land protecting plant.
Besides "geotextil" another interesting materiel is used there: a kind of styrofoam with both sides covered with thin aluminum. This is used as roof isolation to keep the coolness inside the rooms and to reflect the heat from the sun. Air conditioning is planned for the rooms, so with this isolation for sure energy will be saved.
Electricity from solar energy is planned for machines and devices which are used during day time, such as washing machines and pool pump. So, no need for batteries.
Johann recommended "Solahart" to make hot water with their solar water heater. The cheaper product line from Solahart is called "Handal".
For the waste water treatment they use the system from "IndoBio". 5 houses are joined together for one 3-chamber-system. One chamber has aerob bacteria, the other one anerob bacteria and the last one is with ozone. In the end the water is 95% cleansed and it will be used to water the garden. Too much toilet paper causes problems to this system. Unbleached toilet paper can't be found in Bali.(Does someone know where? Please tell us!) Therefor toilets with integrated hygiene "wiping" with water in stead of dry cleaning with paper are already ordered. Hopefully the future guests and owners will understand.
A nice lunch filled our hungry bellies before we were leaving this interesting site.

Bali, Greece, Africa, trees everywhere!

Remember the beautiful story by Jean Giono, The Man Who Planted Trees, which Norm gave to us to read during or Permaculture seminar last year? Well, there are people who turn fiction to reality.
Please watch the following inspiring video about a man who planted one million trees in his homeland Ethiopia.
I started also, here in Paros, Greece :)
My warmest wishes to all of you

Permaculture-Excursion to the Bukit on 23rd of March 2010

On the 23rd of March a few of our club joined an excursion to the South of Bali to learn more about Solar-Energy.
Thanks to the kind invitation of Florian Nitsch from Contained Energy to meet in the R.O.L.E Foundation we all visited for the first time this place with great Education, Awareness & Assistance Programs. We were specially interested in the Eco Construction and Organic Agriculture.

At first we got information about solar energy, solar dryer, biogas and how to produce small torches from Jatropha oil. Sitting in the shadow on the top of the site in the nice ROLE café (with amazing view!)we enjoyed to discuss in detail all our ideas and question we had concerning solar energy. Thank you Florian for all the useful information and your time.
solar dryer

 

 

 

torches made of jatropha oil and kapok
 

We finsihed our visit in the R.O.L.E foundation after we got a guided tour through other parts of the area where we could visit the Spa and got explanation about Aloe vera, also very interesting the weaving program and the Organic Agriculture Site.
For sure it was not the last time we have been there.

Afterwards we visited the office of Solar Power Indonesia. Without having an appointment we were very lucky to meet the Engineering Manager who gave us also valuable information.

Battery Recycling

Waste Collecting Station in a Supermarket in Switzerland

Hello from Zürich in Switzerland where it is still quite cold and spring is only slowly taking command. I want to let you know about the souvenirs I carried with me on my trip from Bali to Switzerland. Because there is no battery recycling plant in Indonesia as far as I know I took the used batteries I had collected with me. It was about 2kg. Quite heavy but they didn't need a lot of space in my baggage.
In Switzerland exist 12000 battery collecting stations in various shops and supermarkets. There is a law which obliges the shops which sell batteries to take them back for free. The recycling costs are included in the price of the batteries. More than 60% of the sold batteries are returned for recycling with increasing tendency. Source of these facts: http://www.littering.ch/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=318
So I took the batteries to the nearest collecting station and deposited them there. Now wondering where they will go next. As I had heard of waste transports from industrialized countries to development countries I wanted to be sure that my batteries were not shipped back to Indonesia or another country or dumped somewhere into the ocean. I was very happy when my research led me to Batrec Industrie AG, a company situated in Switzerland specializing in recycling. All collected batteries in Switzerland go there and are recycled according to the highest quality standards.
For your used batteries I suggest, as long as there is no recycling plant in Bali or Indonesia, to collect them in our group and whenever I travel to Switzerland I will carry them there.