Four Great Green Business Ideas
We all want to leave our world a better place for our children and grandchildren. What better way than to develop a green business around an idea that reduces, reuses, or recycles? These four great green business ideas will get you thinking about how you can create a sustainable green business that will support you and your family, and ensure that you’re improving your bit of Mother Earth. Many of these ideas can be run as a freelancer and contractor. And there are communities for you to market your freelance skills or market your small business.
1. Permaculture Consulting, Design and Instruction
According to wikipedia, “Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies.”
A certified Permaculture Designer will design and integrate holistic home, business and landscaping systems so that the entire setting becomes a self sustaining closed ecology, with the permaculturist taking into account all inhabitants, both human and otherwise. Permaculture designers look at all interconnected aspects of a site, and then weave all the parts into a harmonious whole, with each part helping to support and sustain the other parts. This includes, but is not limited to, natural habitat and indigenous flora and fauna, plant and animal synergies and dependencies, water use and conservation which includes rain runoff and graywater recovery and usage systems, alternative clean energy sources, alternative sustainable building methods, food production, composting and other waste disposal, and weather cycles.
Permaculture is not limited to country or suburban settings, but can also be integrated into urban areas via green roofs, community green areas, composting systems, integration of bird and bee habitat, and other activities.
Permaculturists can work alongside LEED certified Architects, Landscape Designers, Wastewater Reclamation System Designers and Sustainable Building Contractors, to pull disparate parts of a whole into an integrated and well functioning ecology. This will work especially well when integrated into the Transition Towns Initiative. Certified Permaculturists can also teach various aspects of Permaculture.
There are certification courses in various parts of the world, which, as of this writing, run approximately $1,200 in the US and are usually a two week course. Here are a few in the US:
Regenerative Design Institute & Permaculture Institute of Northern California
Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute, Ithaca NY
The Permaculture Project, Stelle IL
2. Wastewater and Graywater Reclamation System Design Professional
With water resources becoming increasingly scarce, designing systems for the recycling of wastewater such as storm runoff, and gray water such as washwater, for the purposes of landscaping and other non-potable usages will be increasingly important. Desalination is also becoming more cost effective and receiving much attention.
According to the National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association (NOWRA) onsite wastewater systems provide water treatment to homes, businesses and industrial centers. Providing this service is one of the fastest growing markets within North America, Australia and Eastern Europe. These onsite systems support the existing municipal wastewater treatment infrastructure by recycling graywater and reducing the load on sewage treatment plants.
For coastal cities on the west coast of the US, where water is scarce, reuse and desalination are becoming the norm, according to the WateReuse Association.
WaterWise has instituted watersaving recommendations throughout the UK.
Those who currently work in plumbing, heating and other similar building disciplines can expand into this fast growing field and know that, as they build wastewater reclamation systems, they’re benefitting our communities by helping to reduce our tax expenditures on waste treatment, and conserving our water supplies.
3. Battery Rebuilding and Reconditioning Service
Keeping batteries, full of harmful chemicals, out of our landfills is an important endeavor, especially as the use of batteries in hybrid cars, wind generation and solar generation installations, and electronics such as computers and cellphones increases. Rebuilding and reconditioning batteries and battery packs will play an ever increasingly important part of waste recycling as long as energy storage is needed.
Rebuilding involves removing spent cells, recycling the component parts, and replacing them with new cells. Reconditioning is done various ways depending on the composition of the battery. There are some online forums and resources to learn more:
http://www.toolcrib.com/blog/2008/11/04/power-tool-battery-repair-resources-for-rebuilding-your-rechargeable-batteries/
http://209.67.23.186/forums/
http://forums.all-battery.com/
4. Edible Organic Gardening Service
With all the info in the news about our tainted food supply and the dangers of genetically modified food, an organic garden is a great idea for feeding a family better food. But with both adults working, sometimes there isn’t time to fit a garden into the picture.
Starting an organic gardening service is a low cost of entry business that, in an upscale area, could reap big rewards, both in income and in the satisfaction that you’re helping famlies to eat better food. A side service could be provided in collecting organic waste for worm composting, raising red worms, and selling the excess worms to others who wish to create worm compost bins, or to bait shops.