Sounds groovy right?  Do you imagine a hippy with a flower in their hair talking free love from the 60’s?  The ideas from the Sumer of Love faded with time as with the social and economic effects.  It would be the next generation that would set the tech revolution and change the way the world worked - too bad! These lost concepts of love, life, flower power, and living in balance with Mother Earth are becoming important again. 

Many of today’s issues can easily addressed by using long forgotten 60’s wisdom with a 20th century spin.  The idea of Flower Power is now big business and is changing the conventional economic paradigm.  No more are we “Colonial Raiders” taking as much resources as profitable and leaving when a better opportunity shows itself.  Instead, the idea of sustainability is now front and center in a quickly warming world.  What are the ideas from the 60’s that could address issues that concern the people of Earth today?

Garbage.  We create too much waste.  Recycling is a joke and is a growing problem worldwide.  Millions of pounds of food go into landfills daily while tens of thousands of people go hungry.  60’s idea: Nothing’s garbage, man!  Use old tires, bottles, and a vast array of waste materials to construct “Earth Ships.” These self-sustaining, living structures provide food, clean water, power, a cheap, and healthy environment for the occupants.  The cost of construction is a fraction of conventional homes and can easily use reclaimed building materials for new structures.

Compost it, man! The process of composting creates a cheap source of rich soil.  Any farmer, gardener, or home contractor knows, dirt ain’t cheap! Composting turns waste into “black gold” and takes waste out of landfills.  The millions of pounds of waste normally transported to landfills and dumped suddenly isn’t there - this would be a huge cost savings to towns, counties, states, and America as a whole.  These materials can then be used for local gardens to grow food for those who go hungry and give them the power to work for their own food instead of getting a handout.  Composting starts it all!

Not all garbage is pure waste either.  There are “methane capture” systems that take the methane from garbage dumps and creates a clean source of energy.  Several car plants in America use this process and it provides a reliable source of energy for pennies on the dollar.  A well-managed trash pile can be converted over years into a useful piece of real estate. Mount Trashmore Park in Virginia is a good example The important part is that we need to deal with waste locally.  Dumping our New York garbage overseas is just unacceptable and has led to a world-wide environmental crisis.   Good waste management is good business.

Recycling technology is vastly over matched by the volume of plastic, metal, and other solid waste.  The dream of a plastic that can fully be recycled and reused is a myth and the truth is that petroleum plastics are extremely dangerous.  Worse is the fact that they find plastic on the ocean’s floor or a deserted island, and they don’t biodegrade.  Fish and other sea life eat plastics thinking it’s food.  Whales are found with stomachs filled with plastic waste.  Why? There are dozens of other materials that create biodegradable plastics.  We must make our money talk and ween ourselves off the petroleum-based products. 

Give a peace sign, preach Flower Power, and insist that we must live up to the responsibility of dealing with our own mess.  It’s poor behavior to ask others to do our work, and dealing with our GARBAGE is a BIG mess, but it is not impossible.  The green revolution starts with the garbage revolt and the redirecting of everyday trash into a valuable resource will help to lead us into a brighter tomorrow.  Turn up the tunes, light up, and celebrate 21st century Flower Power.

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