Jeff Steele

Hey all!
I own & operate a Precious Plastic workspace with my wife and totally agree that this is a perfect project for an intentional community.

One would never expect Permaculture and plastic to go so well together! Yet waste is just an unutilized resource, right? Value renewables (and stuff that can be recycled indefinitely), integrate instead of separate, start with small solutions, and stack the functions high... The Precious Plastic approach nails all of these permaculture principles!

And I love grabbing single-use containers that just might be shipped overseas before getting dumped in the ocean, and turning them into long-lasting, beautiful, functional goods. After a couple of years of crawling through the learning curve of this process, I've just scored my first wholesale manufacturing order!

We collect containers in our neighborhood from a bike, saving them from a dubious fate with diesel-dependent industrialists, and take them back to our workspace in a converted 30-foot camper trailer. We have a Precious Plastic style shredder, injector, and extruder, along with the board-pressing system, a CNC machine, and/or an array of woodworking tools to transform this material into an assortment of products.

The next thing we're gonna need, is help. It's just us 2 running the whole project, along with raising a little one. We've been talking about hiring someone, but we also want to relocate.

Our goal beyond this artisan recycling project is the standard permaculture homesteading dream, preferably in a community of like-minded friends.

The quickest route to making our dream come true would be to partner with an established community. This eco-friendly recycling system is a perfect way to give back to the greater community while creating a bunch of ethically profitable work.

Are there any ecovillages out there interested in exploring a partnership?

We're currently near Vancouver British Columbia; been talking about moving to the States, or even further south. The people & the climate seem more important than the name of the place.

Short of partnering with an established community, it would be great to expand this business with people who also have this permaculture-land dream. This business would be a great mechanism to fund a community. Can use it to make building materials for the community too!

You can see what we do on Insta at Sustainable_ArtisanBC or on our website at SustainableArtisan.com.

Anyone interested..?

Single-family zoning limits properties from having more than one home. BC just did away with that limitation for "all municipalities with more than 5,000 residents". One can still build a single-family home. But with this change, one can now build 4 to 6 homes on one piece of property.

Local governments like Vancouver have been allowing ADUs for some years now. This law is at the provincial level and allows for much more change.

If you're considering issues like sewage and water limitations, road congestion, parking, and local autonomy, you're probably thinking about it more than the knuckleheads who passed this law. But here's the part I'm focusing on…

Most of the 10+ acre properties for sale in BC allow only one home with one family living in it. You could ask the government to rezone and probably get away with people living in mobile homes, but it's not guaranteed or worth risking your life savings.

So pooling your resources with others to afford land you can all live on is not so straightforward.

An ecovillage on Vancouver Island took a decade of lobbying politicians to get permission to live together. Another had members in the planning department and it still took years.

All of a sudden, all the dots on the BC real estate map are zoned for 4 families..!? A guarantee that several families can live on a single piece of property could be a game changer for those who want to live self-sufficiently.

British Columbia just got rid of single-family zoning! Is that permission to start small intentional communities?

Zoning is the biggest problem I see in starting something like a cooperative permaculture farm. Farmable land is typically not zoned for multiple families to live on. Land is too expensive for one family to afford, and sustainable living is a lot of work.

But if 4 families could go in on land and share the development of a permaculture project, all of a sudden the dream is much more achievable.

California got rid of its single-family zoning a few years ago. Has anyone heard of communal land purchases taking advantage of the change?

Is anyone else excited by what this could mean for intentional living?

Are you & your family yearning for a fulfilling, sustainable life filled with creativity, joy and purpose? Join us in creating a vibrant intentional community!

We imagine raising little ones with like-minded parents, cultivating their knowledge, capabilities, and happiness through innovative educational methods. Let's collaborate to form a nurturing educational pod, leveraging the most effective teaching techniques.

At the foundation of happiness is health, best sustained by nutrient-rich food, a rarity in today's world. We'd like to apply Mark Sheppard's approach to rotational grazing and silviculture, along with an assortment of other appropriate technologies to grow a balanced diet for as many people as possible.

We imagine a proper permaculture farm offering an assortment of fresh, preserved, and prepared food. Could have a CSA program (maybe call it a nutrient subscription), a store, perhaps a restaurant &/or bed & breakfast. We could include community education & events, or other sustainable enterprises into the project.

My partner and I run a Precious Plastic-inspired business called Sustainable Artisan, recycling single-use containers into long-lasting goods. With the right help, our business could fund this project. (Any marketing/sales specialists out there who want to start an eco-village?)

I'm also working on an autonomous wheelbarrow, in my pursuit of creating the ultimate permaculture tools. Open-source mapping and identification algorithms could revolutionize permaculture! (Is it time for a permaculture tech company?)

Financially, I think a cooperative business model could best incorporate people with different amounts & skill sets to contribute. Those who have invested the most would shape the detail of the project's vision and prioritize our goals. Then use a sociocracy structure and consent decision-making with all involved to strategize how to complete the goals and manage daily happenings.

I'm fascinated by the potential of a community currency coupled with inclusive governance. We could decide as a group what tasks pay what amount. Our currency could act as a kind of stock in our business that is valued based on our mutual success, in an attempt to align personal & group motivations. Everyone should be free to buy in or cash out.

This project might be described as a neighborhood of like-minded friends who regularly work, eat, play, and design their life together. We imagine many communal spaces, tools & toys, along with private homes and plenty of family time. We've been looking for land in British Columbia (where we live), but cheaper lands and milder winters are also appealing.

Maybe grab one of these "no zoning" properties along with a backhoe & a saw mill and get building! Or go big, find subdividable land, create a strata, and add "agrihood real estate development" to the vision.

Any families in my area looking to design an integrated life, who value transparency, intelligence, autonomy, fairness, health, and living an integrated life? Who also might be interested in meditation, nonviolent communication, alternative medicine, philosophy, DIYing it, finding a balance between financial success and free time, raising the most brilliant kids possible, and putting our permaculture knowledge to the test?

Or maybe you're a group looking for an ethical fundraising mechanism like our artisan recycling project and are interested in possibly partnering up.

Drop us a line.