Sustainability Efforts

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Energy

Goal

Disorient camp at Burning Man is aiming to use 95% renewable energy by 2027.

Solar

We have been working on solar solutions for Geodesic Temple with our friends at Black Rock Labs since 2017.

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CoSign "D", part of D22's frontage, 100% powered by solar array provided by Black Rock Labs.

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Wind

See TSSHP below.

On-Site Mixed Plastics Recycling

Lead: The Eye

After all these years and all these words that describe all those good intents, we are still in what feels like the Stone Age of plastic recycling. A long-term solution demands that we break the table-to-landfill cycle and weave plastic recycling deep into our lives by turning it into a habit, a ritual.

Here's our plan

1. Keep it simple.
1.1. Use what's readily available. The chosen recycling process should not require water, chemicals, additives, adhesives, or fillers. Ultimately, it should not require electricity either but we will probably use some electricity at the beginning to jumpstart the process.
1.2. Minimal pre-processing. We need to find ways to make recycling entertaining and intellectually rewarding, in other words, we need to amplify its feel-good factor and make it viral. Developing a recycling habit should be as easy as possible and therefore should involve only minimal sorting, cleaning or pre-processing. There are arguments for pre-processing but at our stage of recycling (remember, we're in the Stone Age) we just need to keep it as simple as possible to get started. We can get fancy later.
2. On-site, on-scale and self-reliant. Moving discarded plastics is a big part of the pollution problem. Ironically, current recycling strategies involve polluting the air further by shipping huge amounts of trash around the planet. Following our DIY ethos, plastics recycled by Disorient is not moved to another facility across the playa or across the planet. It is reconfigured on site with a solution tailored to our problem.
3. Distributed. To have a better chance to reduce our contribution to the landfill, plastic recycling needs to become easy, hyper-local and sexy. Based on point #2 above, the solution should be open-source and easily replicable by other individuals/camps/communities. The centralized industrial solutions in place need to be supported by decentralized individual solutions. We need to address the problem where it happens: everyone's backyard. Small solutions, distribute widely.

Technical solutions

We use a plastic shredder like this one to turn mixed plastics into little chips and a brick compressor which compresses the plastic chips into bricks similar to this one or that one to create bricks following this example.

Plastic shredder at the Museum of Space Available, Bali, Indonesia:
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Examples of brick compressor and molds
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Plastic shredder and brick compressor at Monsieur Spoon in Pererenan, Bali, Indonesia, August 2020:
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Notes:
a. In hot climates there is an opportunity to use solar heat to melt or at least soften the plastic chips to help the brick-making compressing process.
b. Pressure = heat. Using a 2 ton press will probably work ok. A 10 ton press will probably give better result. What happens if we use a 4000 ton press to create our plastic bricks? c. A radical experiment of melting mixed plastics together.

What new plastic objects do we need?

Making objects out of plastic trash is neat but here is the question waiting for us at the end of the recycling line: what kind of new plastic objects do we need? What objects are best position to gain the most by being made out of plastic? How do we avoid recycling the problem along with the plastic?

Disorient's goal is not only to become self-reliant when it comes to plastic recycling by recycling on-site (immediacy) but also to start using the resulting plastic bricks (and possibly other objects depending on the molds used during compression) as a component of our art installations. Creating filaments to be used in 3D printers is a possible solution but requires specific types of plastics which means that we would need to add pre-processing steps to our plastic recycling which is something that we are trying to avoid.

It's somewhat comforting to know that when our recycled plastic objects become obsolete, we can throw them back into the shredder for another cycle.

None of this is new. What's new is to actually make it happen.

Transformative Shower System Hybrid Program (TSSHP)

Lead: Proto

Shared community space to ascend and renew. Perspective and Perseverance are two assets of playa life. With disorient’s founder’s guidance a short/medium/longterm evolving program to reenergize our community will spearhead Burning mans ___? 2027 net zero goal.

Like nature, the parts of the biota collaborate to support the overall ecosystem. We plan to do the same. Wind, Water, Gravity, and thermal exchanges are the toys of physics we persevere or enjoy. We play/engineer/strive for balance. We purpose an experience diverse spatially. A shower system to accommodate 4-5 privately, semi-privately and for those freed, a pinnacle perspective with only gravity accountable. A cool lounge pre and post cleanse lit to illuminate your imagination. The top of the structure will have staircase to a crow’s nest where the last shower will have a view of the camp/playa. Integrated into the staircase will be the infrastructure for a vertical axis windmill generating XX Kws. As a complete unit this lighthouse for net 0 power generation can be replicated on all four (5-6 units maybe) corners of Disorient aspiring to us achieved to net zero.

Top priority: no one get seriously hurt or dies.

2023: A base structure of a shower(s) / eagle’s nest / greywater swamp cooler lounge.

2024: Design with intention the base structural will facilitate the vertical Windmill prototype. Recordation from diesel generators total camp usage from alpha, burn, Disengage.

2025: Refine/optimize windmill prototype for more KWs and maybe make a better turbine design.

2026: Reproduce 2-4

2027: Sell units to other camps. Achieve net Zero


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Disorient Unplugged

Further exploring sustainable options, Disorient Unplugged is a new type of Disorient event that requires no electricity. Removing electricity from Disorient is a challenge that forces us to re-interpret fundamental aspects of Disorient.
Our first Disorient Unplugged event was Disorient presents: BURNING MANTAP in Bali in 2021.