It’s Time For “Nana-Technology” To Save Our Planet
As I was hanging my laundry out on the line following the South By Southwest Eco Conference earlier this month, I realized that one concept of the festival had stuck with me.
That idea was saving the earth through “Nana-technology”–or doing things like your nana (or grandmother) would have done.
SXSW Eco is a small environmentally focused conference, offering panels on everything from sustainable food to the creation of non-petroleum based jet fuel for commercial airplanes.
This idea of “Nana-technology” came out of the panel “Designing a Future Without Waste” (#wastedfuture) which featured speakers from Australia and New Zealand discussing how to save the planet through home gardening and reusing what some would consider garbage. Since the Austin City Council has set a goal of Austin becoming a zero-waste city by 2040 (keeping 90 precent of discarded materials out of the landfill) I couldn’t help thinking that a lot of what was said in this panel applied to us!
As I spent a lot of formative time with my grandparents, this concept of “Nana-technology” resonated with me. Nearly all of my grandparents grew up on large family farms, then moved to Houston during the Depression.
Growing up I hung laundry on the line with one grandmother, while I gleefully helped tear up homegrown cabbage for sauerkraut with my other grandmother. Early each summer I put on long sleeves at dawn to pick figs out of my grandmother’s fig trees on her front lawn for the family fig-canning extravaganza. I felt sorry for the kids who didn’t have competing home grown tomatoes and corn from each of their grandfathers and chicken eggs from a grandmother who also raised goats.
As I grew up, I realized I lived a lot like my grandparents, only without the goats. This panel just gave a zippy name to the way I’m already living my “Nana-technology” life. I’ve written about my devotion to line-drying before, but I realized that things had gone further. When possible, I prefer to leave the air conditioner off and just use the ceiling fans. Before I got married and my husband took over the chore, I mowed the lawn of my 1939 house with an old-fashioned human-powered push mower (Pro tip: pick up any sticks before you start to mow, so the cutting wheel won’t get stuck!). Other than the dishwasher, I’m not a big fan of labor saving devices, preferring zealous use of the broom instead of the vacuum, and using the rake instead of the leaf blower. Every so often I release my aggressions by taking the sofa cushions outside and beating the bejesus out of them.
Apart from the impact of my grandparents, there are other reasons I’ve embraced the Nana-technology lifestyle. I love quiet. I don’t want to hear an unnecessary electric motor. And I’m cheap! Brooms cost bupkis compared to fancy machines! The fact that this September was globally the hottest in 135 years is just another reason to reach for the broom, not the vacuum.
The more I thought about it, I realized this “Nana-technology” movement is already starting to catch on. Gardening and canning are becoming more popular, as is the practice of having backyard chickens. Likewise making your own clothing—which was in the doldrums for decades—is also experiencing a comeback.
One of the other ideas that came from this panel was the idea of fixing things (instead of buying a replacement) as a way of fighting back the tide of trash. I realized that I had been doing that for a long time, partly because I don’t want to try to figure out how something new works!
I also realized that I may have married my husband partly because of his ability to fix all of the broken things in my life. My grandfather was known for his ability to McGuyver a solution to many a household repair, armed with only some bailing wire and an old auto part that he dredged out of his garage. It’s a gift I appreciate more and more, especially when I have to call a plumber to fix a leak.
As I get older, sometimes I have a hard time reconciling the fancy world I live in—where you can buy a turnkey DIY canning kit from high end cooking store Williams- Sonoma– with the just-off-the-farm money stretching I learned at home.
Maybe we can all improve our city by trying a little “Nana-technology.” Even if some of us do have to buy DIY kits to get started, we can still help the environment, and maybe we can save ourselves some cash in the long term.
What a fabulous post ! I grew up w/ the maker /re-make/remake/make-do milieu of older Silent Gen parents. They came by it naturally. My paternal grandparents used to call me to run down the hill to watch each Spring’s incubated eggs as they hatched. This was in a house w/ outdoor “facilities” (until I was a teen!), but a 10 minute drive to the Farmers’ Market, which was in the shadow of our State Capitol building. They typically had both chickens & pigs, so the “meet your meat” movement here in Middle TN didn’t represent anything new for me. We supported the push for backyard urban hens, CSA’s, neighborhood farmers markets chockfull of yummy organics, etc.. My parents always had a huge garden, w/ plenty of extra veggies to give our friends, so we’re heartened to see the rise of community gardens, seed libraries, & backyard patches in our urban , bus-stop-in-front-of-our-house neighborhood. My mom’s parents re-upholstered the same sofa repeatedly, & my MawMaw made matching curtains in each of the 10+ rental homes where they were moved by his railroad job. PawPaw would obtain permission to “improve” each house w/a porch, swing, & screens for the windows , which weren’t standard. They, too, had chickens & piglets in mom’s childhood, as my uncle was active in 4-H (as were my own kids). Flash forward to today. Most of the curtains in my own folks’ house are homemade—even the thick, fancy ones that grace their formal living room. I’ve watched my dad custom refinish yard sale furniture, my mom upholster chairs; we canned pickles, tomatoes, preserves . I have sense memory of mindlessly snapping beans while watching tv, & being expected to help tend the garden after school & weekends. We had a backyard clothesline until I left for Senior year at boarding school in 1988, so I’m not sure why my mom, who worked in publishing gave it up. Not long after, the garden sized down by half, while not-as-tasty tomatoes began to trickled in from the store. They didn’t even *smell* like tomatoes should! W/ our own kids, they grew up w/ us recycling—1st loading up to take things to recycling centers—before we were blessed w/curbside recycling. We have the maximum # of curbside containers —five. But I’m embarrassed to say, no composting at our house. We’ve looked at backyard clothesline set-ups at our neighborhood real*** hardware store for 3-4 summers running. We’ve “kissed” a couple of attractive clotheslines, but not thrown our arms ’round them, & brought them home. Embarrassing, our clothesline commitment issues . Hubs finds them a backward eyesore, while I suffer from a crisis of confidence, along w/ a worry about invisible pollen beasties clinging to every sunkist sheet. Backyard chickens or a garden? Nope. Again, we’re vaguely worried we’d sink moolah in, only to learn that we suck at being greener than we are. Even my flowers are silks. I’ve been in the backyard once this month—to watch my son shoot hoops. Your post has me mentally flirting w/ that un-sexy clothesline, again. So why can’t I commit?
***has resident cat; not the nearby big box
Should I admit that two of my clotheslines are just clothesline-by-the-yard knotted at the proper place and tied onto the fence? The other is a retractable clothesline that was less than 10 bucks.
I’ve seen much fancier clotheslines, but I’ve never bought one!