Build a Washing Machine Greywater Surge Tank

...down the sewer will instead water your plants after first spending a short time in the fifty gallon drum. Temporarily draining your washing machine into a fifty gallon drum has two advantages. First, it allows hot water to cool and secondly it prevents siphoning mishaps and washing machine pump burnouts that can happen if you try to move the water directly to your garden through a pipe. Here’s how to create a surge tank: 1. Get ahold of a fifty ga...

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The Horror

...hists out there, Bike Snob’s deconstructions of Craigslist ads are a great time waster. Fellow LA Bloggist and committed bike commuter Will Campbell (his mileage indicates that he’s got the Kool-aid in those bottle cages), has smacked down Cato institute stormtrooper Randall O’Toole in an ongoing debate on cycling in the pages of the L.A. Times. Urban Velo #5 is available for download and it’s free. Lastly, Commute by Bike has some tips on how to...

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Nuts!

...e nut trees into your landscaping. Why plant a useless ficus tree when you can plant something that will provide food? And come harvest time you wont need to mix in any racing fuel....

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How to Catch and Eat a Rat

...We certainly have rats around our little Los Angeles compound, but we’ve never considered eating them. Thankfully potty-mouthed survival expert Cody Lundin, author of 98.6 Degrees The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive, shows you how in this youtube highlight. If you enjoyed the squirrel melt video we posted some time ago, you’ll love this one as well. And the kids will dig those rat pelts!...

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Save the World–Poop in a Bucket

...human waste, a number of other stories on the subject came out at the same time: Wasteland: A Journey through the American cloaca in Harper’s Magazine. Journalist Frederick Kaufman traces sewage from New York’s North River Solid Waste Treatment Plant to . . . [spoiler here!] bags of soil at Home Depot. A Mother Earth News reader submitted a photo and description of a handsome sawdust privy made out of an old garden hose box. Very clever! Science D...

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