Urban Homestead Trademarks Cancelled!

After six years of legal wrangling, “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading” belong to us all. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has cancelled the trademarks thanks to the hard work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the law firm of Winston & Strawn. Here’s the press release from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Urban Homesteaders Win Cancellation of Bogus Trademarks Global Community Had Faced Baseless Legal Claims and Content Remo...

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What laundry detergent should I use for greywater applications?

...Water Resources) Check out that link to Brad’s site for more good info. on greywater detergents, and all things greywater in general: According to State of California Department of Water Resource’s Graywater Guide: Using Graywater in Your Landscape [2], specific ingredients to avoid include: -chlorine or bleach -peroxygen -sodium perborate -sodium trypochlorite -boron -borax -petroleum distillate -alkylbenzene -“whiteners” -“softeners” -“enzymatic...

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Greywater Precautions

...we need to be careful. So here are SurviveLA’s rules to follow when using greywater: Do not apply greywater to crops that you will eat raw, such as strawberries, carrots or lettuce. Using greywater on any vegetables is somewhat dodgy in general for heath reasons, but greywater is fine for edible plants such as fruit trees where the crop is far from the ground and the risk of direct contamination by contact with contaminated water is low. Do not a...

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“Urban Homesteading” belongs to us all

...r Urban Homesteading, for winning the right for all of us to use the term “urban homesteading” freely from now on out. Longtime readers may remember that back in 2011, the Dervaes Institute sent notices to a dozen or so organizations, informing them that they could no longer use the terms “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading” unless speaking about the work of the Dervaes Institute, as they had registered trademark on both terms. Beyond that,...

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Greywater Guerrillas in LA this Weekend

...CA 90066 Time: 7-9pm Cost: $25 To register: email Ray Cirino 818-834-7074 Greywater Design Workshop; Interested in reusing your greywater? Want to learn more about it and how to build your own system? Come to our design workshop. We’ll present you with information on the most common, low-tech, low-cost, effective, residential greywater systems. Then we’ll break into groups and help you plan a system for your own home. Participants will be emailed...

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