Charlie Mgee - 'No Such Thing As Waste' (Permaculture Principle #6: Produce No Waste)
Channel: Formidable Vegetable
Date: 2019-11-26

From the album, Permaculture: A Rhymer's Manual: https://music.formidablevegetable.com.au
Learn more about the permaculture principle at: https://permacultureprinciples.com/permaculture-principles/_6/
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This is a true story. I grew up in a mud brick shed that my dad built using local soil and salvaged wood from the tip. With just a single 40W solar panel (which is still going strong 25 years on), I learned to be conscious of saving power to a degree that some people may find absurd (but when you only have enough electricity to run a single light for a few hours a night, you remember to turn it off when you're not using it!). Later on, after leaving home and moving to the city, I was struck by how wasteful people in 'normal' society could be and spent a lot of time rescuing old furniture people has tossed onto the kerbside (sometimes selling it for a bit of pocket money!) After developing something of a hobby out of repurposing waste, I was blown away when some punk friends introduced me to dumpster-diving for groceries, converting a diesel engine to run on waste vegetable oil and making compost from growing my own food. Eventually I came full-circle and joined a Permaculture Design Course (PDC), which essentially taught me how to go back to living the way I did when I was growing up, only better! We filmed this in front of the Melliodora composting bays (made from repurposed pallets). Turning our waste back into healthy soil is the ultimate recycling solution!

Performed by Charlie Mgee.
Filmed at Melliodora by Brenna Quinlan.
cc. 2019 Charlie Mgee/Formidable Vegetable