Selfsufficientish.com

...students have been doing this for years...I don't think I could face that amount of growing bacteria again...

I don't think communal kitchens is the way forward (as many have taken this thread to be about). But the idea of people specialising in certain cooking techniques is a cood idea, as long as the produce is local. It goes back to the old barter system, or in the days when every village had a backer, cheesemaker, butcher, etc

So really you are talking about re-establishing local communities and small shops - the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker (it might come to that when we run out of oil!). If so, what a great idea. Local shops using locally grown ingredients to produce food for the community. This is what the green community is striving for. Dunno if we can ever beat Tescos though.

our kitchen is kinda communal. there are always a number of people here, and people mysteriously appear at dinner time. i tend to do the cooking, and have quite a reputation now for good home produced food, mainly from the garden.
recently we have had wwoofers staying who could and liked to cook - so i am learning to not be so territorial over my kitchen! as long as people clean up after themselves its not such a problem :)

its certainly better to cook for more people than the conventional nuclear family, but its not practical for most people to up and move to a rural commune, and most people wouldnt want to. if i was in an urban house, i would arrange viewings of films like 'what a way to go - life at end of empire' and get my neighbours talking about it all, and maybe, just maybe, find that some of my neighbours are interested in sharing more, creating community gardens, setting up a LETS scheme etc... and before you know it, we are rotating bread making responsibility, or eating together some nights, and even community composting, shared electric generation.

the way i see it, one of our biggest problems is that we dont talk to our neighbours, dont trust each other, try to take on the world single-handedly in our nuclear family units....

and sharing is fun! :)

wulf wrote:As well as the problem of abuse, there is also the problem of time. For example, washing clothes would be harder if I had to go to the local laundrette and much harder if everyone else was also relying on going there.

To some extent, that is a symptom of an unsustainable society but the path away from there has to be taken in small steps, especially as most of us rely on so many others for almost every part of our lives. A clean break from society would be almost impossible and, anyway, no man is an island...

Wulf

a small step that could easily be taken when moving into your first home though is surely the use of local launderettes, considering you are in fit state to travel there and back with the laundry. to give up on a system like this cos its harder... i dunno, just seems like a cop out. choosing to use a launderette rather than buying into the whole idea of the 'essential' white good is a small step. love me local launderette!

I can't say that using a launderette makes sense to me
a) you are assuming that their machines use less energy, you are assuming that they do more washes per manufacturing energy and you are assuming that they are more energy efficient in their washing cycle that your home machine. I have not seen any published evidence to support this
b) they are dammned inconvenient and you have to sit and wait whilst your washing is done, no option to put it on an economy/quick cycle either.
c) they need to make a profit so you are paying more than you would for using your home machine.

eek ok! it was just the point of reducing the number of white goods manufactured. no, i havnt done the math but iam assuming its more economic as you can do about 3 or 4 average washes in one large machine. and at my launderette, you can choose a cycle. and sometimes i am willing to pay a little more than the average if i believe something to be a more environmental choice. i'm not suggesting the current launderette situation in the Uk is perfect, just that its a system that could be improved to the benefit of the environment if more people were to use them!

I could never live with a communal kitchen and washing area again. I did it for 3 years at uni and another year while living at my boyfreind's (now my husband's) dad's house.

1. unreliable state of clenliness- other people's standards may not be up to yours, or yours up to theirs
2. inability to get to the hob/oven when you most need to
3. dishonesty; stuff being nicked from the fridge, cupboards, hob, laundry room...

I could tell many a horror story about the halls I lived in at uni, an also about jim's dad's house when i first moved there!!!