Texas Professor Lives In Dumpster - Vid and Pics!

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Texas Professor Lives In Dumpster - Vid and Pics!

Affectionately known by his students and others on campus as Professor Dumpster, Prof. Jeff Wilson will be teaching lessons in sustainability from his new home: a converted dumpster on the campus of Huston-Tillotson University.

Over the course of the year, the dumpster will be retrofitted into a modern dwelling space with all the amenities of a standard American home (shower, toilet, kitchen, bed, and WiFi access). By living in the dumpster, Professor Dumpster will not only experiment with innovative ways to live with less, but will also serve as the friendly (and funny) face for the educational side of the project. Just like Bill Nye the Science Guy or Mrs. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus, Professor Dumpster will engage with the next generation in creative thinking about the important topics of sustainability and science education.

This is a little different than dumpster diving for food, wouldn't you say?  I will be following this project to see how it works out for him in this little space.  You can watch the progress on the website dumpsterproject.org. 

 

Come on in and make yourself comfortable in our fully furnished 33 square foot house. Did we mention it’s a dumpster? While the project could have been centered around a large cargo container or a tiny house, we decided on the dumpster. A dumpster is the perfect symbol to present themes on waste and consumption in an engaging way. It’s weird. It’s fun. It gets the wheels of imagination turning.

Professor Dumpster will be spending one year in a dumpster that is approximately 6 feet x 6 feet, or about 1% the size of the average new American home in 2011. Every element of the dumpster will present a stark contrast to the consumption levels of the average American lifestyle. It will be a “net zero” model, meaning that it will consume only as much electricity as it produces through solar panels. Innovative systems will also be developed for water filtration, climate control, and waste reduction. Professor Dumpster will be relying on creative collaboration from the greater international design and education community to help outfit the dumpster with everything he’ll need to live comfortably in an intense central Texas climate, where average summer highs are in the high-90s.

Professor Dumpster’s ongoing dumpster experiment is geared to capture the attention of a wide audience and ignite accessible (and entertaining) dialogue around the concept of living with less. It’s also just one of many platforms in a groundbreaking green campus initiative at Huston Tillotson University in Austin, Texas. While the dumpster is based in the heart of East Austin it’s also intended to be a mobile house that will move around the state and country on educational tours. Let us know if you’d like the dumpster to make a stop at your school or community event. Our “casa” es su casa!

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And for some fun (and a little creepiness), here is Cyril the Hobo, the dumpster diving chef, who travels from town to town in remote locations and cooks gourmet food from the local dumpsters.

This episode he travels to the new super town of Margaret River. He gets a chance to surf some filthy pits, play some beats and cook a "mulligan stew" that only Margs could produce so easily.

 

 

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