CULTIVATE YOURSELF!: From Trash to Treasure

Sunday, April 15, 2007

From Trash to Treasure

Hi everyone. Just wanted to introduce myself as Nic has invited me to join the Cultivate blog. My name is Mike Kavanagh (on the left in the photo). I'm originaly from Dublin where I studied Geology back in the late 80s early 90s. After a couple of years in Italy, I moved to Sydney 10 years ago and have just moved back to Europe. I am currently based in Pavia, south of Milan. I developed an interest in Sustainable Resource Management while doing a Masters in Groundwater Studies at UNSW and working as a Dryland Salinity Hydrogeologist in Central Western NSW. More recently, I have been working in Local Govt as a Waste Audit & Education Officer. I developed an interest in the wonderful world of waste after working in the Bower Re-use & Repair Centre Co-op and Reverse Garbage Re-use Centre Co-op in Sydney. I am interested in setting up a Re-use & Repair Centre in Dublin and would be more than interested in hearing from anyone else who may be interested in getting involved. I would love to see Dublin's re-use culture being promoted and developed to the same level that I have experienced in Sydney. I believe that every communitty neighbourhood would benefit from access to a Communitty Garden, a Food Co-op & a Re-use & Repair Centre............ I have a strong interest in Permaculture (completed my PDC with Robin Francis) but I still have a long way to go. I am particularly interested in Participatory Education for Sustainable Living using Communitty Gardens, Re-use Centres, Food Co-ops, Sustainability Centres and Interpretive Tourguiding Programs as Communitty Development tools. Guess that's enough from me at the moment. I'm very excitted about getting more involved with Cultivate and I'm looking forward to meeting up with some of you at next weeks Convergence. Ciao Mike

1 comment:

Nic said...: Grazie Mike!

Lads, today, the 17th of April, we kicked off the 12th Convergence Festival. And as every time, a big issue here has been waste management. The equation is pretty simple: loads of people = loads of waste. And a sustainable way to deal with waste is not just about recycling practices. It is also about saving time and energy for those who are in charge of that. Thus, me, Mike and Josephine have set up a sort of recycling point in the big hall of Cultivate Centre, in order to let the people be able to dispose of their waste by themselves. Mike experience was hugely useful in doing that: we created a user-friendly infrastructure made of bins and labels. Which is actually what we needed there! We eventually shifted the waste management from us to the conferences' attendees! Which is cool, because we save time and energy, and people learn by doing!
Thanks Mike!; April 17, 2007 at 5:54 PM

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