Chapter 13: Recycling

The construction effort was moving along nicely with the Auburn Silo approaching completion. My decision to start moving into the Ark when the Auburn Silo was finished had opened a can of worms.

Clara and I had discussed the effects the Ark environment might have on its residents with the psychologist that the Ark Foundation had hired as a consultant during the early days of construction. She defined to us that in a survival situation a reduced level of living standards would be acceptable to our inhabitants for a 6-12 month stay. Beyond 12 months, the stark environment would have a negative impact on the mood and emotional well-being of our residents. She also told us that people, especially kids, would need a place to gather and socialize. That was why each level had a dedicated park, and the park had a recreational area dedicated to group sports.

One of the first tasks the Habitation Department performed was to analyze the labor needs of the Ark and the security needs of the Ark Foundation both before and after the meteoroids’ arrival. I had provided them with Charlie and Tim’s recommendations concerning security. The Department’s Co-Vice Presidents, Samantha and Julie Anders, concluded that the Ark Foundation employees should move into the Ark as soon as it was feasibly possible for several reasons. This conclusion would increase the Ark’s labor needs, and that would probably cause a further increase the population living in the Ark.

In addition to the Ark being a more secure location in which to reside, the Habitation Department wanted us to use the remaining time before the meteoroids arrived as a trial run. If we had made any oversights in our planning, hopefully, the oversight would be identified so it could be corrected. They also felt that moving into the Ark now would allow them to setup their office work areas, and simplify their commute to work. They did not want a future move into the Ark to disrupt their workflow during a critical period in our schedule, far better to do it at a time of our choosing. I asked about their having to interface with the public with their offices located in the Silo, as they had described previously. Samantha informed me that they planned for their main operation to be in the Silo, but they would have several satellite offices where the general public could meet with the Department’s representatives.

When we combined our psychologist’s recommendation with the Habitation Department’s analysis and our Security Specialists recommendations, several things became clear. Our employee’s should move into the Ark as soon as they could, and that meant they would be living in that environment for about 10 years before the meteoroids arrived. Our employees would need better living quarters than what we planned for our ‘short-term residents’. Our employees’ lifestyles would be demarcated by a set of rules that would be different from the more restrictive rules and lifestyle we would impose on our ‘short-term’ inhabitants. These differences are the kinds of things that breed anger and resentment in a closed social environment. Somehow, we would have to defuse this situation before it developed.

When I finally got around to informing my Bond Mates of what I was considering, Tara asked, “Do the rooms have a kitchen and laundry room?”

What had we been thinking of? It was obvious that we would need to be able to live our current lifestyle in the Ark, until the resident’s services were able to support the Ark’s population. The thought of eating food prepared by Belinda’s catering service and pounding our wet clothes between two rocks to get them clean for the rest of my life woke me up to a few of the things we had overlooked. Pounding clothes with rocks? Yeah, I think Bob’s humor had just struck again.

“Ah, Clara, we have a problem. Get out your laptop and create an action item to evaluate what a long-term resident will need in the Ark to live an acceptable life style.”

Well, we did the analysis and decided that we would have to upgrade a number of the rooms to provide kitchen and laundry facilities, and a few other things like telephone, internet, and TV service. We had already planned for TVs and laptops in all of the rooms as part of the entertainment equipment, so we could play DVDs.

Shortly after we let the contract for the construction, Sam and his advisors had modified the original scope of work to be done by not finishing the rock walls in most of the residences with framing, sheetrock, and paint, so we were well ahead of the original schedule. Our oversight ate up some of that time for we had to retrofit a large number of residences for the use of our long-term residents.

The construction effort was modified to give our employees a higher quality of residential living space than the average residences. The rock walls of all the residences were smoothed by Bob and Sharna during excavation, so we planned to paint the bare rock walls in light pastel colors; add flooring, an all-electric kitchen/laundry area; telephone, internet, and TV service; and a well-stocked recreation room. The basic residences would have a recreation room also, but they would not be quite as nice as the ones we provided our employees, and in addition, our employees would have the option of modifying their living areas to suit their personal preferences before the meteoroids arrived.

We realized that when our employees moved into the Ark, they would want to bring all of their personal belongings with them. Under the circumstances, we saw no reason to prohibit this privilege. We felt they should be allowed to setup their homes as they wished, so they would be happy and comfortable during a long-term residence. We also realized that this privilege would not be extended to short-term residents.

We decided that in the Auburn Silo, Level 13 would be allocated to Ark Foundation employee residences. We were hoping that by isolating ourselves from the short-term residents, they would not be as aware of the differences in living standards. Clara and I had our Advisory Council create a questionnaire listing the options our employees had to choose from for the remodel of their future residences. Being able to select your own paint color and type of floor covering may not seem like much, but when you would have to live with your choices for 20+ years, it became a critical factor in everyone’s future lifestyle. The most important choice was each family’s choice of recreation.

What this upgrade actually meant is we would have two classes of residents living in the Ark once we began processing our short-term residents. We would have to be careful how we handled this situation during the in-processing briefing. We believed we needed to be upfront with our people by letting them know there were two types of residences in the Ark, and the reasons for this difference. People who were expected to reside in the Ark for less than a year would be assigned to a basic residence. The people who would be long-term residents would be assigned to an upgraded residence. We would also have to establish restrictions on how much personal property a short-term resident would be allowed to bring with them. We also decided that we would need a policy limiting movement of residents between levels. The primary reason for limiting movement was we did not want to rub the ‘short-term’ residents’ faces in the significantly better living conditions provided to our employees. However, we publically defined the reason as the movement of hundreds of thousands of residents aimlessly wandering through a Silo would place too great a load on the elevators, which would in turn interfere with the day-to-day activities of the Silo’s support staff.

The contractor had finished the necessary changes to Level 13, and I was to meet Sam at the Auburn Freight Yard after lunch to tour the Auburn Silo before we started our Acceptance Inspections. While we were doing our inspection, I told him about my experience at Mary’s latest meeting of her Provisioning Department and what had happened afterward.

She had held an all-hands meeting of her department personnel to status the overall provisioning effort, and she had invited me to attend the meeting. I decided it was a good excuse to escape the boredom and tedium that my job was inflicting on my day-to-day existence. It was not that incidents like the union troubles were boring, but they were few and infrequent, thank God.

The meeting had gone well under Mary’s guidance. The provisioning effort was on schedule and possibly a little ahead of where we knew we had to be. Mary was getting ready to adjourn the meeting and asked if there was any further input to be considered.

That was when Leah Snider gave us a proverbial smack upside the head. She said, “I have something to add that I think needs to be addressed, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Provisioning. Well actually, the topic may have some impact on our provisioning effort.

“A couple of days ago, it occurred to me that we have no recycling program. Our society’s failure to recycle things was a major problem for many years. We finally realized that we needed to conserve our resources and started a number of recycling programs, which I have supported for many years. It looks like the Ark Society is slipping back into the mindset of being a throwaway society and I think that is a serious mistake.

“If we apply the term recycle to everything we would be better off. Think about all of the equipment we are buying and stockpiling. Eventually that equipment will breakdown or wear out. We have no plans for repairing or refurbishing it to extend its life expectancy. Instead of just discarding an item and replacing it until we exhaust our stockpiled items, I think we should consider restoring the old items for future use. Yes, I know it is impossible to stock spare parts for every possible failure of everything we have, but we can stock the high failure rate items and cannibalize parts from defective items. That means we will also need to have a large number of mechanics to do the repairs and schools to teach the kids how to repair the equipment.

“Then there are our plans for agriculture. Right now, the land is productive because the farmers use fertilizers to replace the nutrients that are shipped away when the crops are harvested and sold. Do we have plans for restoring the nutrients when we are the ones doing the farming? If we are going to do that, where are we to get our fertilizers?

“Did you know that in addition to composting vegetative matter, human and animal waste can be recycled to produce soil amendments? We will be generating a great deal of organic waste matter in feeding and caring for the people who will live in the Ark. Once we return to the surface, we will also be raising cattle, sheep, and pigs. They will generate a large amount of waste product. I believe most of that waste matter can be recycled into some form of fertilizer or soil amendment.

“I was going strong thinking of all the things that could be recycled, when it occurred to me that once our population has relocated to the surface, what will we to do with the four Silos? Obviously one of the Silos will be used as our headquarters and main base of operations. The unused items we stock in the four Silos will continue to be stored there until they are needed.

“We will need to establish things like schools for young children and colleges for the older kids and adults. Hospitals and medical services will be needed. We will also need manufacturing and repair facilities to replace and support everything that we are buying now. We will need to manufacture clothing, tools, furniture, and many other things. Food may need to be processed and distributed. All of these things, plus many others, can best be done at centralized locations. Therefore, once our inhabitants have returned to the surface, we are going to have to refurbish the Silos to support the people living in our new locations. We haven’t started any plans that I am aware of to do the things that will need to be done, and if we need to buy anything like equipment or text books for these efforts, we need to get it before the meteoroids arrive.”

We all sat there dumbfounded for we were all aware of most of these things, but we hadn’t identified that we needed to take action to address what would need to be done.

Mary said, “I think you are right Leah. We do need to address all of those things, and that planning will probably lead to our group needing to order a new line of supplies. Jon, how do you want us to handle this situation?”

I was still trying to grasp the scope of what Leah had been talking about, while kicking myself for overlooking an obvious problem when it was staring me in my face. Just last night I had put our recyclable waste out for pickup. Recycling had become so ingrained in my normal life that I just didn’t think about it.

“Uh, I’m not sure Mary, I will need some time to sort out what Leah said and create a plan for addressing it. Leah, is there anyone else that you know of who would be interested in working on a recycling project?”

“Sure there are a number of people who are big supporters of recycling and some of them may know more about it than I do. Why?”

“You may not realize it, but you just identified the need for a new department. I don’t know how big of an effort it will be to define our recycling needs and create an organization to identify and meet those needs, but I do agree with you that we need a recycling program. What I want you to do is start the new department as its temporary manager. Find people who will work with you on these activities and prepare a report for me on what needs to be done and what your group will need to do to complete the task. You also need to keep in mind you only have 10 years in which to complete your task.

“While you start that, I will meet with my Advisory Council and we will decide on how much support we can provide you immediately. Then once the scope and period of the effort is defined, we will ensure that you get the funding and personnel to complete your efforts before the meteoroids arrive. If you need any experts in that field, let me know and we will get you all the expertise you need for I believe this will be a very important activity for the future welfare of the Ark and the Ark Society.”

When I got home, I had Clara add Recycling to the agenda for the next Advisory Council meeting, and suggested we invite Leah to join us. The meeting was in two days, so I felt that with Leah already starting the effort, a short delay would not severely hurt the new task.

That evening Mary, Clara, and I discussed the need for a recycling program. We also reminded ourselves to be aware of any other need that may be staring us in the face. To that end, I decided to task a couple of Advisory Council members with the responsibility for establishing an Advanced Planning Committee. The committee would take our existing definition of what our lifestyle would be like that Larry had prepared to support the creation of our legal system and use it as the starting point for their work. They could then decide what our people would need to live that lifestyle.

I sat in my office the next day just looking at the different things that I used. I asked myself, “How will I get along without items made from paper, metal, and plastic once the manufacturing plants shutdown?” With that thought in mind, I decided we needed to create a plan for restarting the manufacturing plants that produced the basic products that we would need. I had already started the IT group in acquiring the knowledge of how to make and do things in a non-technical environment, so that part of the problem was already being addressed.

Thinking about things like this scared me. Commerce in our society was a complex linkage of companies that produced raw materials that other companies needed to produce their products. These products were often used in the production of other products. Just to see how big of a problem we faced, I did a bit of research to learn how some of the necessities we would need are made. I found that making something simple like a nail was actually a fairly complex process. First, we had to mine the iron ore and refine it, which meant we needed other materials and a source of high heat. Then we had to form the iron into a thin sheet of metal or a roll of wire depending on the process we would use to form the nail. Finally, the iron was cut and shaped to form the nail.

While sitting at my desk, I started listing the things that we used during our everyday life that would cease to exist without people to support their creation and maintenance. In the first five minutes, I had listed electricity; gas; potable water; fuel like coal, gasoline, and diesel; transportation; clothing; food; and entertainment systems. By the time Clara stuck her head in the office, I must have listed over two hundred items.

“What are you doing Jon?”

“I was thinking about Leah’s idea of Recycling, and started a list of things that we will have to do without if we cannot make them ourselves. Many of the things are like chewing gum. They really don’t matter very much in the scheme of things, but some people like them. This train of thought led me to think about other things that do matter to us. For example, we are going to take over the San Joaquin Valley and use the land to grow crops and raise livestock. That is a great idea, but the way we plan to spread out we won’t have a centralized area for marketing the crops other than the Ark. We have been thinking of the Ark as the center of our society, but ‘How is the farmer to get his produce to the Ark?’ Without gasoline and diesel fuel our current transportation systems won’t function. Horse and wagon would work, but it would be extremely slow and the farmer would be limited in the weight and volume he could transport per trip.

“We could refine our own fuel using Bakersfield’s oil fields and refineries, but they need electricity to run the equipment. That means we have to find the source of the electricity and keep it online, so we can pump and refine the oil. Of course, all of this requires trained manpower, which I’m not sure we have. To me, recycling has always been about reusing something that I would think of as trash. After the meteoroids, we will have most of the area’s infrastructure still operable. We can recycle that infrastructure if we have the manpower and knowledge of how to use it and maintain it. It would be nice if we could retain things like electricity, telephone systems, and the Internet. Of course the Internet is a worldwide network and all of those servers will go down. We can keep our servers on-line and bring the others back on-line as we expand.”

“If they aren’t doing it now, it seems to me that our Habitation Department needs to take a look at the infrastructure that will be available to us and determine the job specialties that we will need to recruit. I would especially like to salvage our railroad system. We could use it to move freight and people throughout the valley. When we start expanding outward, we could transport our people and their supplies. If we can create a plan to restore railroad service, then we really should get spur lines built now to connect our Freight Yards to the main railroad lines.”

“Jon, I liked Leah’s idea about recycling the Ark. After all, once our ‘short-term’ residents have returned to the surface and scattered, many of us will still be living in the Ark. We will have an enormous number of empty rooms. What can we do with all this empty space?”

“I’m not sure. As she said, we will need schools and universities for our children, so some of the rooms could be used for classrooms and some rooms as residences for the kids who will have to board with us during our school year. Of course, we will have to structure the year differently so the kids can go home for the planting and harvesting seasons. We could possibly rent some rooms out to businesses, although I can’t think of any business that would want to setup operation here in the Ark.