***• Renee’s first walk in Chippendale, 27 May 2023***

by

Kyle Day and Renee Patricio

We are two interns from the U.S. interning with Sustainable House. This is what we saw and did in our six week internships ending 6 July 2023

Renee:

When I first reviewed the documents that Michael had sent me after being accepted as an intern I felt so excited, but also intrigued. Before, I never thought much about rising urban temperatures, food waste, or carbon emissions. Also, I have never seen someone's life so sustainable until now. When I first got connected with Michael, I read his blogs and watched all of his youtube channel content to familiarise myself with the work, values, and goals of his Sustainable House. Upon meeting Michael, I was warmly welcomed to living sustainably in an inner city suburb of Chippendale in Sydney, about 45 minutes walk from the Sydney Opera House.

My first thoughts on this internship were to wonder how much carbon emissions can be limited. I wondered how to get a community to join these projects.

Kyle:

When I first showed up to work with Michael, I was overwhelmed with all of the things I had to remember. I knew nothing about sustainable living or being environmentally conscious before I started working here, so everything was new and confusing to me.

The previous intern who inducted me into the job was from another culture and spoke a different language. This made it difficult for me to understand exactly the how, what, and why about the work I was tasked to do. However, I didn’t let this communication barrier stop me from figuring everything out. I brought up all of the questions I had with Michael and he pointed me in the right direction.

In my first week, I learned everything there is to know about compost, like what to compost, how to turn compost, and how to effectively design bins for composting. I also learned how to grow mushrooms on my own using recycled yoghurt containers with straw and mushroom spores.

Anyone may garden in the footpaths of Sydney City Council where Chippendale is located, and without approval from the local council under guidelines in the Council’s Footpath Garden Policy. Using the policy residents compost, plant plants and garden, and the streets are cooler, greener and healthier for humans, birds and insects - and property values are higher.

Composting Routine

***• A healthy composting bin on the intersection of Shepherd and Myrtle Streets***

Kyle:

As an aspiring data scientist, I was at first unsure how sustainable living would relate to my field of interest. Would I be making a new Coolseat Calculator? Or would I be designing some sort of sustainable living app? These things were unclear to me at the start.

Michael soon informed me of a couple of different projects that he was working on using a data driven approach. He asked me to focus on a project involving designing a compost experiment for a Girls High School. This sounded interesting to me because a big component of data science revolves around experiments and testing. Michael gave me a barebones structure of what the project would look like and I designed the database along with the methods of data collection.

After a couple weeks of working for Michael, I started to settle into the daily rhythm of composting, and working on some of Michael’s data driven projects. I helped induct the new intern Renee and made sure I did a good job of communicating what work for Michael involves.

Renee:

On my first day interning at the Sustainable House, I was taught by Michael and Kyle about the basics of composting. We went out into the Chippendale streets and I began my first glimpse into what sustainable living looks like. I was looking forward to my internship so that I could analyse food waste data and visualise datasets collected from our composting projects to further our understanding of our environmental impact.

Here is our composting routine that we did every Monday and Wednesday.

First, we grab the tools and clothing needed to compost. This includes gardening gloves, safety vests, a black 80kg container, an auger, and the homi hand tool which can be used to rake, dig and garden. We make our way to the end of Myrtle St. where we begin to compost! The first container that we manage is the rotating bin. We remove the lid and empty the organic contents which locals and passers-by have put into it. This food waste has shredded paper in it to absorb moisture. When emptying the rotating bin, we fill a black container to then track the kilograms of food waste we collect. Each black bin is roughly 80kg, so will measure the food waste amount and log it into our Coolseat calculator.

In the past 5 weeks, we have composted 705 kg of food waste, preventing 1592.5 kg of carbon emissions from entering Earth’s atmosphere

***• Emptying the rotation bin 5 July 2023***

***• Adding the food waste into the square compost bin***

After recording the food waste amount, we go to a nearby composting bin to put the food waste. Each composting bin varies in size, shape, and building material, but the act of composting is the same for all bins.

We remove the hessian sacks that cover the top layer of compost. These sacks are biodegradable potato sacks that prevent sunlight from drying the soil and provide a barrier for insects to travel throughout the whole moist compost bin. They are recycled when empty of potatoes from a local cafe, Cafe Guilia.

After we remove the sacks, we empty food waste into the compost. We then take an auger, which is a metal bar that has a screw on it, and mix the compost. This is so the insects, soil, and oxygen from the bottom of the bin can be moved to the top. The oxygenation and mixing help keep the compost healthy to speed up the decaying process.

Roughly speaking, 10 to 15 kg of food waste breaks down to about 1 kg of compost.

***• Compost from a Shepherd Street coolseat, 29 May 2023 - this is about 80% composted and it needs more composting to become fine soil-like compost***

If we notice that the compost is too wet, smelly, or has a lot of food waste, we add paper, dry leaves, or coffee grounds into the compost. We do this to balance the composition of the soil and to dry it out to speed up the composting process. Adding coffee grounds from local cafes into the compost also deters rats from searching the compost. (They don't like coffee.)

***• L to R: Renee and Kyle adding coffee grounds into the compost***

Additionally, we also remove any materials that are not supposed to be in the compost bins. This includes metal, plastic, or glass products.

The number one rule to composting is that “If it was alive at one time, it can be composted” - Michael Mobbs. So if the material was a living organism, you can compost.

Also, we cut any long greenery like celery/scallions with secateurs to not tangle the auger. After mixing thoroughly, the hessian sacks get placed neatly onto the top of the compost. It is important to ensure it is flat, so it does not interfere with the compost lid’s seal. After closing the lid, you are ready to move on to the next compost bin.

During this routine we tend and manage 15 composting bins in the Chippendale area. With the involvement of the community, the compost bins are being supplied with nutritious food waste to create rich soil for the footpath gardens and for residents who wish to use the compost for their home plants.

Kyle:

Maintaining the Coolseat compost bins in Chippendale gave me a better understanding of the composting process. It helped me to start seeing how sustainable living can be quantified and how I can do it.

I then did a little research on my own about how scientists are using and collecting data relating to compost.

Two factors I found to stand out in the composting process were temperature and acidity. As compost breaks down it creates heat. This means a greater temperature brings a better cooking compost. Acidity also plays a big role in how the food waste added to compost breaks down. In my first week working for Michael, I learned to put paper shreds in the compost when there were lots of lemons. Now I know the reasoning behind this is because lemons are acidic, which means they negatively impact the decomposition process of the food waste, so adding a lot of paper shreds negates this acidic effect.

Projects

***• Kyle and Renee using buckets to grow Oyster Mushrooms***

During our time interning with Michael, we have done a few projects along the way. Firstly, let's start with mushroom growing. The purpose of this project was to see if growing mushrooms was more cost-effective than buying them, and also, simply to learn another way of growing our own food. After learning about this possibility, we created our own mushroom-growing project. First, we sanitised the hay and wood chips with boiling water. These were then set in the sunlight to fully dry. Small holes were then drilled into the buckets to enable the mushrooms to grow. After the hay was dried, we layered it with the mushroom spores into the bucket. These buckets were placed in a shady area of Michael’s house where the mushrooms would sprout over the next few weeks.

Bana grass cuttings were also made to provide the community with more greenery and shade. These cuttings were placed in the Chippendale footpaths, in the raised garden beds of local cafes, and at the Girls High School.

Additionally, we also empty the rich composting soil and package it for others to use. After augering the compost, we take the nutritious soil and put it into hessian sacks or reused bags. These will then be given away as free compost in Cafe Guilia or used for other local community projects. This can all be done with the help of the cafes, which uses their food waste to make a difference and build trust with their customers and community.

***• Lemons from Knox Street Bar in Chippendale are mixed into the compost***

• Lemons composting near Knox Street Bar, 5 July 2023

We use the rich soil made from compost by placing it in gardens along Chippendale’s footpaths. By providing the street’s greenery with the nutrients and water it deserves, the footpath flourishes with leaf cover, fruit and flower blooms, and liveliness.

***• Rich soil taken out of the Shepherd St. coolseat to fertilise the footpath gardens, 3 July 2023***

***• Kyle pouring nutrient-filled water into the footpath gardens:, 3 July 2023***

We have had the great opportunity to help out with this project at a Girls High School.

This project will provide students and teachers with a way to reduce their food organic waste. This means that the students can learn more about the composting process and participate in reducing their school’s waste. The composting is integrated with research skills at the school library, science, maths and cooking lessons. Along with composting, we are also creating a sensory garden for students with learning difficulties. This garden will provide a flourishing place to look at and for students and teachers to interact with. We hope that this project will encourage other schools to take steps to reduce their food waste, while simultaneously informing students about its significance to the planet’s future, and showing how studying science, maths, research and cooking can be explained through gardening and composting.

***• Kyle Day, Samara and Dominic gardening at the Girls High School***

The Blogging Experience

Renee:

In my blog called “FOGO: A Failure or Success?” I focused on the Inner West Council’s plan to reduce “Food Organics and Garden Organics” - FOGO. I have learned about policies, councils, and local government here in Sydney, Australia. After contacting the Inner West Council with inquiries about the FOGO project, I was informed of details relating to their decision.

Aspects of my opinion and results from the FOGO plan blog were collected from the Inner West Council’s Site, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the Australian Department of Environment and Energy. This data showed that food waste is the largest generated household waste, making it something that the Inner West and Australia, as well as my country, the US, should focus on. I researched different methods of food waste management, how we can implement those methods, and why we should start these procedures now.

I believe that the FOGO plan is only “the tip of the iceberg” in this problem of food waste. This is the foundation of why Chippendale cherishes the community’s dedication to reducing their food waste, setting an example of what a strong and mindful community can do.

Kyle:

Another skill I developed in my time working for Michael is using data to tell a story.

One of the main things I worked on in my internship was a blog on Michaels's blog detailing the true story behind the City of Sydney’s reconstruction of 68 local parks, Climate pollution from rebuilding 68 parks.

My main goal for this blog post was to quantify the pollution of one park reconstruction and extrapolate this to the entire 68 parks. The aim of the blog was to inform locals about how harmful this park reconstruction plan was to Earth’s environment.

This journalism and research type of work was very different from the work I was expecting to do. I am not very interested in writing and am more used to doing coding work. There was no dataset given for me to analyze, so I had to go research and give estimates in a way that was new to me.

In the process of writing my blog post, I learned how to find relevant data and convey the information in a way that fit the narrative I was trying to tell. Michael helped me figure out the specific type of language I needed to use in the blog so that it would be more impactful to my audience. I created graphics in the post that were easily digestible yet still contained a wealth of important statistics.

Renee and Kyle - Our Future

These amazing experiences at the Sustainable House will be something that we will treasure. After learning and assisting Michael Mobbs with community projects, we will continue to grow our own healthy habits of sustainable living in our own ways at home. By shopping more sustainably, using less plastics and paper waste, composting, and using cleaner transportation, we hope to practice these responsible methods to decrease our carbon footprint in the World.

Renee:

I hope to educate my local community and family about the importance of composting and eco-friendliness. In my hometown, it is almost taboo to recycle, use public transportation daily, and reduce food waste. Because these concepts are not common around my area of Pennsylvania, it is difficult to have access to these beneficial recycling programs and clean transportation. For example, although my elementary and intermediate middle school were less than a 30-minute walk from my house, students like me were not permitted to walk to school because of the lack of public sidewalks.

I believe that climate change goes unnoticed by people until they see a visible effect from it, which then causes more chaos and unrecoverable damage. Due to our global greenhouse gas emissions, areas once known to be “safe” from environmental variability are now seeing powerful climate impacts.

Pollution can be seen with the recent Canadian fires that have been affecting not only Eastern and Western Canada but also across the border to the United States. As the wind currents push the wildfire smoke to other locations in the Northern U.S., Americans are witnessing the impact of raising land temperatures. Air pollution has been plummeting in cities across North America such as Lebel-sur-Quévillon, Canada, Tacoma, Washington, and Chateh, Canada where air conditions are currently (as of June 5, 2023) or were recently considered Hazardous (a measure of 149 or greater).

***• Canada’s wildfires are so huge that smoke from them has travelled to my back garden in western Pennsylvania***

My hometown in Western Pennsylvania had been affected by the wildfire smoke. Below is a picture of our backyard garden, where a normally clear summer evening is foggy or hazy.

***• Renee’s Backyard Garden, 30 June 2023, in western Pennsylvania - smoke from Canada fills the sky***

Kyle:

Data science is a very broad field of study and connects to nearly all industries. This internship taught me that data science means different things to different people.

For me as a student at university, data science is memorising probability distributions and understanding statistical theory. For someone working at a large tech company, data science is managing database infrastructure and cloud computers. For consultants or people working in finance, data science is making charts and presentations. And for Michael, data science includes quantifying pollution emissions to create a narrative around sustainable living and helping the environment.