Cycles & digesting at book stations

General observations

Interestingly humans are the only creatures who build dead things like plastic bowls, concrete buildings, cars, or tar roads. And the only ‘cycle’ that is available to dead things is to increase the waste mountains.

In contrast, nature is alive. A seed awakes to new life, grows, bears fruit, and eventually dies. And instead of increasing waste, nature uses every discarded leaf to enrich the soil and nurture new life.

The human itself only lives because it follows a daily cycle of digesting, or in other words: food goes in, poo comes out, and poo can serve as nutrient for new life.

At a book station

Digesting rather than stockpiling, using compostable materials rather than dead materials, and creating cycles rather than increasing waste are important aspects of how book stations are built, and how they are run.

Though, how to build a house that grows, lives and dies, nurturing the ground for a new house to rise, that is still a big mystery.

But some things should be possible, such as:

  • Cycles for water and waste
  • Sustainable forestry
  • Gardens and fields to make use of natural waste and to give room to a healthy ecosystem
  • Books and paper recycling
  • Sustainable book printing
  • Using sustainable building materials
  • Using organic materials on roads
  • Using pavements only where needed
  • Using underground spaces where possible
  • Not using fossil fuels, plastic or other toxins
  • Establishing production standards for durable books, and creating a feasible system of passing books on to other readers
  • Making offers for bespoke books
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