Exercise Bikes, Seashells, Moldy Basements, and Unemployment: Solved
Posted by carrie_roll
The other day, I had an email conversation with Lindsey, who is one of our amazing writers for GreenJoyment. The conversation led an interesting direction, so with Lindsey’s permission, I am posting our emails here.
Ok Jonathan, you are the only other person I know that would truly be interested in this. If you don’t have time, don’t worry about it, but my parents had a great idea.
Fitness clubs. People are always on treadmills and cycle machines, constantly. There is even a spin class. Tell me something. WHY do those machines need to be electrically powered? Hook those things up to something like a wind turbine generator and people could be powering things. Not just their machine, they could potentially be powering the entire club, right? I think this is a huge idea, hooking athletic equipment up to these power generators. If you want your imagination to really turn wild, think about the future of turning around Americas obesity problem as your TV set being hooked up to a treadmill, ha!
You have to run to watch TV. But seriously, it’s a good idea right?
It’s amazing, the more I think about it, the more athletic clubs just aren’t necessary, but with their existence, they could actually be doing lots of good in the world.
I responded to Lindsey’s email (below) with the ZERI story which I heard about from ZERI’s founder at the Denver Green Festival.
It’s a pretty powerful study in what can be done with some creative thinking.
Hey Lindsey!
You’re right. It’s a great idea. And there’s actually a company called ZERI that took this concept and used it in this way…
A county in California had something like 25% unemployment. They went into the county and asked the people what some of their biggest challenges were.
One of the issues that came out of the discussion was that the homes were constantly growing mold due to the humidity and high acidity content of the air.
People would have mold companies come into their houses and spray their homes with stuff to kill the mold. For 2-4 months, their homes would be toxic to them (but mold free), for 3-4 months, the house would be fine, and then the mold would grow back and the home would need to be sprayed again, usually at a cost of about $1,000/year.
So they asked the question – what is nature’s solution to preventing mold?
What conditions would need to exist naturally in order for mold not to grow?
Well, you need materials that create a low base PH, and that pull and hold lots of moisture without causing mold to grow.
So, they looked around for natural solutions.
This county borders the ocean.
Every day, seaweed and broken seashells wash up on the shore. Seashells have a naturally base PH level (because they’re mostly calcium), and seaweed absorbs up to 50 times its own weight in water.
They bought a large shredder on eBay.
They bought exercise bikes.
The exercise bikes were hooked up to the shredder (via belts or chains and pulleys).
People were employed to rake the beach. Those people took the seashells and seaweed and threw them into the shredder. People came and rode the bikes (for pay or as a free “health club”). When they rode the bikes, the seashell/seaweed material was turned into a powder/mash.
Other people would come and take that powder/mash material to the other people’s homes.
In new construction, the seashells powder would be mixed in with the concrete to make it naturally base material. In existing construction, this seaweed and seashell material would be placed around the foundation, pulling the moisture out of the home, making the PH level much more base, and would solve the mold problem for up to 5 years. People would pay $2,000 for this, but instead of $1,000/year, they would pay $2,000 for 5 years, at a net savings of $3,000.
That money, plus the money from people coming to ride the bikes at the seashore health club, went to pay the wages of the beach rakers, the construction people (digging around the foundations and placing the seaweed/seashells), the drivers, the sales people, and the person managing the health club.
No more toxic homes, no more mold, and a solution to help with the high unemployment rate.
There are creative and simple solutions to the challenges which plague us. Take a look at some of the other initiatives ZERI has taken action on and developed in this realm.
Thanks Lindsey!
Jonathan
What do you think about it GreenJoyment?
Let me know you’re out there reading this by commenting with your thoughts below!
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my partner and i feel so disappointed, have tried out diet supplements in addition to almost all of these work out equipment and absolutely nothing appears to perform