After the first week of separating organic waste (5 households in total), we made the biowaste ready for fermentation together. This was declared to be a labour intensive and boundary pushing activity. We cut and mixed the biowaste with Bokashi starter by hand. Smells and textures of different one-week-old food remains excited people’s senses to the extreme now and then. However, the together part made it easier in many ways and even stirred interesting reflections. After all, being part of physical boundary pushing activities together creates mutual understanding and reliance on one another’s courage. Coming in contact with the waste like this is definitely memorable.
There was disappointment too in relation to the imperfections of the process, such as the chemical nature of the cleaning agents used to disinfect afterwards, or us still relying on plastics for certain containment. What’s interesting to me in particular is that such a practice, involving a biotechnique to grow a material (thus working with micro-organisms as technology) may seem so natural to us in some ways, as if the practice has always been around and no one had to think of it. This applies to our wide relation to technology too; the more a device is a black box that always works, the more our expectations of it grow higher and we think it could do the impossible. Culturally, we have developed low tolerance (and patience for that matter) to failure and imperfections. We tend to easily take things for granted. When enough information is absent we even tend believe in magic.
Disappointment should however always be allowed to be part of this journey too. In our organic waste processing session, talking about it brought up very interesting discussion about what is pro-active or counter-active ecological action, or how much perfectionism we may indulge with when experimenting with new things. It also brought back a shared sense of responsibility for the future that can at times feel paralyzing. Acting right is not always up to the small folk and this duality between trying and not being given the tools for it can affect one’s sense of optimism.