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There is no away

waste equals food
copystar

“Mom! Look! A monarch butterfly!”

I stopped digging small shovels of compost into a standardized ’medium’ Foodcycle bag and asked my daughter, “Where?”

“In the tallgrass behind the composter!”

I leaned back, looked up and got a good look at the butterfly as it fed on the nectar of a blazing star.

“Wow. But its not a monarch.”

“Yes it is. I know what a monarch butterfly is.”

“No it’s not. Check your field guide.”

Anna reluctantly took her eyes off of the butterfly as she pulled out her cellular computer and tabbed through the taxonomic keys of the guide. “Animal… Insect… Butterfly. Orange…  Hey!” She slowly walked towards the still feeding butterfly for a closer look. She stopped, tapped at her screen and announced “Its a viceroy!”

The one thing I love about online field guides is their filtering systems. Being geographically aware they don’t show you all the flora and fauna on your continent, just the ones most likely to be there. The guides also prompt you for just the right follow-up observations in order to help you identify your species. In this case, the guide most likely asked my daughter about the nature of the black markings on the butterfly.

Anna started tapping again and then held her device in front to me for secondary verification. I keep my chop on a necklace and so I pulled it out and pressed its face against the screen. Now that her observation was verified it could be used in official counts and traces. Anna looked back at her screen. “I bet this was the same viceroy that was seen in Sandwich a couple hours ago!”

At this point, the viceroy took flight and headed over the fence to lands beyond. I went back to my work. I wasn’t the best gardener but I somehow managed to make amazing compost. I was hoping to trade some for more garlic and maybe even some pickles.

“Um, mom? Why does the back of the composter have ‘WASTE EQUALS FOOD’ written on it?

“It’s just a low-tech anti-theft measure,” I said as I cinched the bag closed. “I thought it was apt homage to C2C.” I had become a convert to Cradle To Cradle thinking since 2008 which was, coincidentally, when Anna was born. “You used to wear C2C diapers, you know?”

Anna ignored my reminiscing. “I thought it was a reminder for us not to waste our food.”

“No. That’s not what it means. It means that we have to think of waste *as* food. Kitchen scraps become food for soil. Plants grow in soil giving off oxygen as waste. Oxygen becomes food for viceroys. There is no waste. Only food. You can’t throw anything away because there is no away anymore.”

But Anna continued to ignoring me while staring intently at her screen. “Hey! Someone on Giles Ave just saw the viceroy too!”

I opened another bag and started to scoop more compost inside of it. Indeed, there was no “away” anymore.

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Oct 13
waste,gardens,C2C


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  • futuryst
    Oct 11
    Great story, copystar -- I love these next-gen fieldguides help you track sightings of rare species. Anyway, I've been thinking about waste=food too, and suggested a Superstructure called Livefeed which interprets that credo a little differently: http://superstructgame.org/SuperstructView/6
  • a3npr1de
    Oct 13
    You are gay
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