Building with Circular Systems
Homesteads, Villages, BioRegions
The current economic model (at least here in the US) relies heavily on linear systems to create “wealth.” But we’re done with that game, and are trying to build something for the people and the planet, rather than profits. To do that, we have to think like nature. In Circular Systems.
What are Circular Systems?
A circular system is one where the energy and materials flow around continuously, capturing energy efficiencies of locality and natural flow. The water cycle is a great example of a circular system straight out of nature. It rains, the water flows through all sorts of natural systems, then is taken back up into the atmosphere to do it all over again. We don’t have to lift a finger for this natural circular system to work.
But we have injected our own linear systems into the mix that have poisoned and complicated this system. Take the water system in a typical US suburban home, for example. You pay for the input of water from your municipal water system. You use it once. You pay for them to take it away once you’ve “dirtied” it. At this scope, you have a linear system within the wider circular system that does not need to exist. It creates inefficiencies, allows for extortion, and when the municipal system fails — it fails for many.
On the Homestead
But what if we bring our involvement in the water cycle down to the Homestead scale? We collect the rainwater, use it multiple times, then return it to nature as we feed our food forests. It’s nearly free, the impact of failures are reduced, and it builds up the environment around us.
If you want to read more about Circular Systems at the Homestead Scale,
did a great job outlining some key systems in their recent article:
Our family is planning on using many of those same systems on our Domesteading Journey.
In an EcoVillage
Many of the circular systems from the Homestead can also apply here, but utilize the community to scale up. Things like composting and energy production can benefit from community involvement. There are also some new systems we can introduce that don’t make as much sense at the Homestead scale.
Recycling Center / MakerSpace
Instead of paying for materials to be taken away and dumped in a landfill, we can collect, wash, and organize our materials into a recycling center. Then they can be re-used to mend broken things and make new things in our MakerSpace. We can tap into OpenSource projects like Precious Plastic and Open Source Ecology to build these systems.
Grocery CoOperative
While the villages I have in mind will be driving towards self-sufficiency, there will be some groceries we’ll have to buy from elsewhere for a while. But at the village scale, we can buy our groceries in bulk. Then the circular system comes in when we wash and re-fill our personal containers. So much of the convenience packaging on our food ends up in the trash. I have seen this work at a Grocery CoOp when I lived in Olympia, WA — and have heard of new “refill” stores popping up recently for hygiene goods as well.
Local Economy
Most of us (again, I’m thinking about the US) rely on a Federally regulated economy to make money and purchase goods and services. This system is full of middle-men, unnecessary fees and taxes, and extortion. We can remove our dependency on this system by growing a local economy.
If I do some work repairing the village grid, I can receive a token (digital or not, it doesn’t matter, so long as your community trusts the currency) that could be redeemed for other goods or services within the village. With a local token, there’s no “income” or “sales” to be taxed. We don’t have to pay fees or middle-men to move our money. The energy of our transactions stay within circular flows in our own village.
This could look different for each village, from a 3D printed/laser engraved physical token — to a custom crypto-currency. I like the level of trust that a crypto-currency brings, but am not a huge fan of the computational energy footprint that is currently required. To that end, I will be researching HoloChain and digging into its claims as being useful for local economies.
If a whole BioRegion of villages could agree on something, we might even be able to scale this one up.
BioRegional Systems
If we can bring the remainder of our critical systems down to the BioRegional level, we might just be able to replicate modern life out of circular systems. At the BioRegional level, we let EcoVillages specialize in an industry or two, and extend our Grocery CoOperative to network with other EcoVillages for as much of our goods as possible.
In my BioRegion, I know I could network with Eastwind Community to buy nut butters in bulk, returning the 35lb tubs to be re-filled with more nutty goodness. Perhaps another EcoVillage extends their MakerSpace and Recycling center with a large forge that can recycle more metals and make larger metal components for their BioRegion.
I see each BioRegion having an EcoCenter. A place for education and exploration of intentional regenerative living. A place for the sister villages in the region to meet for market days and larger celebrations or workshops. This EcoCenter could be home to many of the larger BioRegional Circular Systems, or at least the first home while other villages learn from their model and replicate it locally. Things like an e-waste recycling facility that require some specialized tech might make more sense here.
An escape route from C@pItali$m
These are just a few examples that have come to mind. There are so many things we can re-design into circular systems. The point is to start utilizing more circular systems, so that we can leave so many of the wasteful linear systems we currently participate in, and start saving resources. We can then channel these gains to further build up regenerative projects. By taking resources and energy back into our own hands, we can channel it into the people and natural environments they live in, avoiding the extractive margins in place with all of the linear systems that currently feed greedy wallets.
At least, that’s the plan. We’d love to have you follow along and see how it goes.
My content will always be free. But if you’d like to ask questions, engage with the content, or help shape what I explore next — I would love to have your support and engagement here on substack. On the horizon, I’ve got plans for a few different articles.
What to do with all this stuff? (De-cluttering, donating, thinning down material possessions in pursuit of community and a minimalist lifestyle)
Regen Village Resource Roundup (compiling the different resources I’m looking to use when building regenerative eco-villages)
Alternative Energy Experiments (elaborating on my Domesteading ideas, some mad scientist SolarPunk stuff with local renewable energy sources, evaluating “appropriate tech”)
OpenSourcing Everything (is there anything that *needs* to be closed source anymore?)
BioHarmony EcoRestore (elaborating on the plans for pulling our most margianalized out of C@pItali$m and into healing communities)
If there’s something that sounds particularly helpful or relevant to you, please let me know.
On the recycling centre/maker space: the amount of industry waste is crazy. enough to make a grown man cry... tears of inspirational joy! This could be an economic model.
Scenario: we are loosing our knowledge base and this effects organizational behavior on all scales. I have experienced first hand that the managerial capacity to repair, verify, fabricate, etc functionality of parts of industrial process is plummeting. EX: what use to be a rule of thumb to throw away fractional horse power motors if bearings needed to be replaced has gone to an inter-industry norm to throw away 50HP or less. real world example: i threw out a 50HP motor that would cost ~$26K canadian for a new one., the replacement bearings would cost $1000. The work would take ~an extra 2-4 hrs without having a setup. possibly more if including the admin process of configuring suppliers and other admin or ERP system stuff. Therein lies the problem: our society hardly has the managerial capacity to manage workspace , workflow, and revolving admin aspects. The savings is doable as is technically but imagine if the workspace is setup and data-info-knowledge-wisdom models are aligned in tandem with the process and workers.
this is actually a deep interdisciplinary problem with knowledge loss at the core. We have a massive divide between "blue" and "white" collar workers. Seems to be growing with potentials in subcultures to make a comeback. The problem amplifies with the upper management lower management communication gap that is often discussed in organizational academic works - but never with workers!
this points to a huge problem and therefore opportunity! Moreover I haven't read but it seems very obvious: ai will effect white collar jobs more than blue collar. Either way there is money in trash! If $26k motors are being thrown out to scrap metal places then there is a financial incentive to creating organizational models. this is merely one example... i could go on f'days!
Solution: image: junkyard dog with glasses.
role modelling: bring the librarian to the junkyard.
moreover: categorize and create SOP's for "make ready" processes. this will be needed for conditioning to work. EX: if we fuck n chuck a piece of junk onto a property - it will not be appealling. we need to clean it up and sort it propa.
EX2: an old car: will you use this to rebuild this very car? y/N - no , gut it and make the parts ready to hand - potentialize them for as many projects as possible. - this would also be a solution to the functionally fit mentality discussed in design circles, aka seeing the forest through the trees - vehicle sensors can be repurposed to "sense" in other processes.
youtube and the internet have tonnes of info on doing cool stuff with trashed items. But a problem is a lack of work space. "It's not enough to have a dream, one must have a garage" -Sam Zeloof. Hence the landbased organizations requirements. The philosopher Delueze talks about land based projects as well - by literally making common ground and grounding our ideologies this can be a solution to the current Post modern paralysis effecting many aspects of public discourse.
another problem is organizational models are templated in our chrony neo-liberal capitalist paradigms. "The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house" - Audre Lourde. We will need Organizational paradigms as decentralized libraries and bundles of qualities ready for DIY, choose your own adventure "as it happens" deliberately development organizational operations. Good news is the open source world has loads of development on this notion. Open source ecology has good segway into hardware world , however they have some massive bottle necks with organization and collaboration. They need help growing and so does the world.
What is needed is a weirdacalypse, aka a quiet revolution. One where decentralized , "new power" organizations will not just dismantled the masters house, but actually accommodate and help the old masters evolve with newer appropriate technologies. We need to compete in the global market by first co-operating to develop new paradigms. If you're reading you're already doing it. The culture is here and there. But much help is needed socializing and building new institutions. It's all happening
"when the divine has been exiled from the table of serious art and intellectual discussion you have to find it in what elite culture thinks of as trash" - Philip K. Dick
The trash stratum is the place for good design. It houses the divine. The feedback is like jupiter in scorpio - abundent raw and truth at any cost - shit don't lie to me! "ya babay ya" - Austin Powers, "Let's a go" - Super Mario