Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Documentary on sustainable biodiesel



In summer 2008 four college students (well, one had graduated) -- Roque, Melissa, Sarah, & Hana -- set about to make a documentary film on the sustainable biodiesel movement which originated in Pittsboro, NC and has made gained a national reputation for teaching others how to make fuel from waste products like used veggie oil and chicken fat! [Eg. Read Biodiesel Power, by Lyle Estill]

We completed seven shoots at Piedmont Biofuels
coop and Industrial site, both in Pittsboro, at the home of Lyle Estill (Piedmont founder) at Carolina Biofuels, Durham, and at the house of a homebrewer, for a total of 8-9 hours of footage.

After a year's hiatus on the project, this fall (2010), UNC communications student Katie Lubinsky is editing the footage into a short film as part of an anthropology internship.


We are grateful to the People's Channel in Chapel Hill, where Roque and Melissa took classes before we borrowed equipment to film. Our finished film will air on Channel 8, the local public access channel, in addition to being marketed for educational use, previewed at Cairns & Sundance, considered for an Oscar . . .yada yada . . .

Painted Rain Barrels


Scroll down for examples of designs we've done on rain barrels and descriptions:

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Price list:
$65 each - Solid colored 55 gal barrels. (usually brown, green or black - state your preference)
$75 each - In stock barrels with ecological designs (55 gal) See above for examples of designs.
$85 each - Custom painted barrels (for barrels with designs that we don't have in stock; Note: Custom barrels may take up to two weeks, depending on schedules of painters.
Visit our shop Recyclique at 2811 Hillsborough Rd., Durham [open: 3-6 pm Thur and Fri or 10am -5 pm Sat.] to view barrels we have in stock; or email for more info:  yikes.contact@gmail.com
 
For orders of two or more, we give a discount of $5 off per barrel.
Delivery locally (Durham city) for $10 (max of two/trip), or free for Watts-Hillandale or Old West Durham.  $15 for outside city, up to 15 miles.

Barrels are re-used industrial food grade plastic, previously used for water-soluble, non-toxic materials. They are lightly sanded and primed, designs are painted with acrylic or latex paints, and finished with a clear urethane finish coat. Faucets (w/ threads for garden hose) are brass, installed into a no-leak conduit, barrels have an overflow installed at the top to which you can attach a hose and run back into your drain system. They have a half-moon opening on top for gutter flow, covered with a nylon screen (secured by a bungee and cord or re-purposed rubber bike tire inner tube) which can be pulled back for dipping out of the barrel. In addition to the screening, for maximum mosquito protection, we recommend use of one-quarter mosquito dunk (or a cup of vinegar) per barrel per month during summer weather.

Rain barrel sales support CommunEcos's sustainability education and green job creation projects - We involve teens and adults in painting rain barrels at festivals and community events; and we produce environmental workshops.
 Visit us at our new website is http://www.communecos.org






Monday, July 7, 2008

Our goals

NOTE:  Beginning in 2011 CommunEcos will be the umbrella non-profit organization that will house both YIKES! and Recyclique.
Our goal is to engage in creative cross-generational projects that build public awareness and encourage new thinking about low energy lifestyles, and the need to live in harmony with the earth and each other. We also explore sustainable social and economic models based on equity and cooperation as our society transitions away from its current obsession with profit and growth.

We seek to create student/youth-run chapters on college and high schools campuses, and in other community settings, that focus on learning about, teaching and promoting solutions for the energy/climate crisis. We hope to build well-informed leaders -- organizers, educators & community members -- who will shape policy in coming decades as human societies go through a cold turkey withdrawal from our fossil fuel addiction.

We need help from you to shape the movement -- everything from "branding" what we do, to website creation, identifying cool projects, shaping our priorities, and figuring out how to influence policy. [See volunteer opportunities page!]

Other goals:
* promoting social entrepreneurship to provide opportunities to adults and young people in low-income neighborhoods which get hit especially hard by high fuel prices
* fostering cross-over projects that engage college students working together with high school students on sustainability projects,
* creating community service activities through which students can earn credit toward courses,
* involving students in creating interactive, and/or visually-interesting projects that will communicate sustainable goals to the wider community,
* developing projects to assist middle and high school teachers to keep up with and enhance school curricula on the changing energy/climate crisis scene
* developing ways to promote awareness of YIKES! work and of the issues we engage with in the wider community/state/nation
* building community and new forms of identity that will enable the great paradigm shift we are living through
* Oh, and by the way -- this is a nerd-friendly organization -- we love folks who are into science!! Rely on you!! -- But our task in YIKES! will be to make science extremely cool, and accessible to English majors, math-phobics, jocks, fashionistas, etc. So we need lots of folks who are into the arts, journalism, web-based formats, podcasts, film, etc. We also need folks who understand politics, history and social studies so we can figure out the human element in these processes -- whether falling down rabbit holes, or climbing out of them --