Patent Application
20220389729
The disclosure of the present patent application relates to environmental systems, and particularly to a sustainable, eco-friendly community.
Individual and community carbon footprints are increasing exponentially, resulting in increasing global warming and extensive use of natural resources. Rapid urbanization puts stress on resources, thus disturbing the ecosystem. In addition to increasing carbon footprint, rapid urbanization increases dependency on single-use plastics, chemical preservatives in packaged foods, and removes the connection between urban and rural communities. This is not only hazardous to the environment but also to peoples' health. Prior art environmental systems include urban agriculture-oriented community planning. Such community planning considers space allocation for micro-agriculture, family gardens or backyards, community gardens or allotments, urban farms and suburban farms, filtering and linking food supply and distribution nodes, maximizing the value of local production and consumption, community public buildings, energy, water resources, social networks, motorized roads covered by buildings, available urban surfaces (rooves, terraces, courtyards, etc.) planted with fruit trees and vegetables, light-transmitting photovoltaic rooves erected on locations with sufficient sunlight, and integrating food production with the external natural environment to meet the land demand for food production. These systems, however, do not provide an arrangement that provides maximum use of the available land. In addition, these systems often do not provide easy access for motor vehicles, bicycles, and foot traffic.
Thus, a sustainable, eco-friendly community solving the aforementioned problems is desired.
SUMMARY
The sustainable, eco-friendly community is arranged in a ringed configuration for maximum use of the available land and promotes a carbon-neutral lifestyle. In addition, the community described herein will serve the further purpose of making cities and human settlements more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, in accordance with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The ringed configuration provides for easy movement within the ecosystem instead of blocking human and animal movement. The first outermost ring includes one or more of thick forest cover with native high oxygen producing tree species, beehives, medicinal plants and an IOT smart irrigation system with rainwater catchment, drip irrigation and water treatment. The outermost ring is open to the surrounding environment to allow free movement/habitat for wildlife. A second ring is completely surrounded by the forested outermost ring and is formed as a bicycle loop/jogging path and can additionally include horticulture and/or floriculture areas. A third ring is completely surrounded by the second ring and includes one or more of agroforestry fruit trees, livestock buildings, a biofuel (e.g. biogas) plant, a solar farm, silvopastures, sprinklers, and a pond. A fourth ring is completely surrounded by the third ring and includes an agriculture area for crops and/or a greenhouse. A fifth ring is completely surrounded by the fourth ring and includes one or more of home lots, an Ayurveda and massage clinic, a club house, a yoga studio, and a community kitchen. A sixth ring is in the form of an access road and is completely surrounded by the fifth ring, except for an entrance through a portion of the fifth ring. A central portion or area includes a neighborhood garden and is completely surrounded by the access road. A bridge at one end of the community crosses the first-fourth rings and connects an entrance to the access road to an exterior of the community. A public refrigerator is also included near the entrance to the community, and solar panels are mounted on top of all suitable structures.
The community produces enough oxygen to offset the occupants' carbon footprint in the community. The majority of dairy, meat, eggs, fruits, grains, vegetables, and greens are produced within the community, with material waste being reduced by reusing or recycling as much as practically and legally possible. Safe technology is used as much as possible, for example flood resistant features and the use of non-toxic building materials. Sustainable homes can be owner built or sub-contracted, to create jobs. Geothermal heating and AC can be used as well. The safe technology and geothermal heating and AC may not be implemented initially, but can be developed as the ecosystems in the community stabilize and the technology matures.
The community kitchen provides specialized jobs such as chefs and uses ingredients that are mostly grown within the community. Other potential features include one or more of: a naturopathy style; cold-pressed oil generation onsite; sun-drying area annexed to the kitchen; every meal prepared fresh every time; uncooked kitchen waste (such as vegetable peels) fed to livestock in the community; cooked surplus food goes to charity using the public refrigerator placed outside the community or is refrigerated and reformatted with the next meal; no harmful chemicals are used to clean vessels or washcloths; limited non-vegetarian dishes (primarily limited to Sunday lunch); and cooking using biofuel.
The clubhouse/community center includes one or more of: a gaming room; a reading room; crafts making and demonstrations; a repair center, and a recycling center where anyone can drop off unwanted items, so they may be reused, or recycled by others in the community.
Other features of the community include one or more of: flowers/shrubs to support the honeybees; most of the food is grown in the hardiness zone of the community in which it is located, while only most essential leaves, vegetables, and fruits are grown in the greenhouse; the cows are milk-producing cows; country free-range chickens; goats to keep the forest areas clean of underbrush; fish, if desired in the pond; peacocks and other animals as needed to maintain the equilibrium within the community; water and sewage treatment, with treated water used for forest cover and farming, and solid waste used as fertilizer or transported to a nearby treatment plant; shared transportation to limit required parking spaces and vehicular pollution; and community dwellers spend a predetermined number of hours each week serving the community, for example, working in the agricultural lands, kitchen, taking care of livestock, or whatever an individual likes to do for the community.
These and other features of the present subject matter will become readily apparent upon further review of the following specification.
Similar reference characters denote corresponding features consistently throughout the attached drawings.
The sustainable, eco-friendly community 100 is shown in the sole figure. The community 100 includes a plurality of rings. While the rings are shown as rectangular and somewhat concentric, it should be understood that other shapes may be considered depending on the terrain the community is built upon. A first outermost ring 130 includes one or more of surrounding forest cover 101 with high oxygen yielding trees, rainwater catchment 102 to control flooding, beehives 103 for producing honey and providing pollinators, a water treatment plant 110, medicinal plant growing area 118, drip irrigation 121 with treated water, and an IOT-based smart irrigation system 127.
A second ring 131 is completely surrounded by the forested outermost ring 130 and is formed as a jogging track 111 or a bicycle loop 112 with one or more of a horticulture area 109 and a floriculture area 113.
A third ring 132 is completely surrounded by the second ring and includes one or more of rainwater catchment 102 to control flooding, agroforestry fruit trees 104, silvopastures fields 105 for livestock grazing, livestock buildings 107, a pond 123 for fish farming and outdoor swimming, a solar farm 126, drip irrigation 121 with treated water, sprinklers 124, an IOT-based smart irrigation system 127, and a biofuel plant 128.
A fourth ring 133 is completely surrounded by the third ring and includes one or more of a greenhouse 106 (initially for individual homes), agriculture areas 108 for crops, sprinklers 124, and an IOT-based smart irrigation system 127.
A fifth ring 134 is completely surrounded by the fourth ring 133 and includes one or more of a plurality of home lots 114 for houses 129, a community kitchen 115, a yoga studio 116, an Ayurveda and massage clinic 117, and a clubhouse/community center 119 including a swimming pool and a theater.
A sixth ring 135 is in the form of a paved access road and is completely surrounded by the fifth ring, except for an entrance 136 through a portion of the fifth ring 134.
A central portion 137 or area is completely surrounded by the access road 135 and includes a neighborhood garden 139.
A bridge 122 at one end of the community crosses the first-fourth rings 130-133 and connects the entrance 136 to the access road 135 to the exterior of the community 100. The bridge 122 and the access road 135 provide vehicle and foot traffic access to the central portion 137 and the fifth ring 134, while still allowing unimpeded movement by animals and others in the first-fourth rings 130-133. A security gate 138 may be provided at the entrance to the bridge 122, if desired.
A public refrigerator 120 is also included near the entrance to the community 100, and solar panels 125 are mounted on top (roof) of one or more of all suitable structures, such as houses 129 and livestock buildings 107, for example.
In use, the sustainable, eco-friendly community 100 is operated by a method including the following steps: topsoil sourced from the forest cover 101 is used to fertilize plants in the greenhouse 106 and the crops in the agriculture areas 108; honey from beehives 103, fruits from the agroforestry fruit trees 104, plants from the greenhouse 106, fish farmed in the pond 123, livestock (goats, chickens, etc.,) and biofuel produced in the biofuel plant 128 are all used in the community kitchen 115; livestock housed in the livestock buildings 107 grazes on plants in the forest cover 101, the silvopastures fields 105 and some of the crops from the agriculture areas 108; water treated in water treatment plant 110 is used to water trees in the forest cover 101; medicinal plants grown in the medicinal plant growing area 118 are used in the Ayurveda and massage clinic 117; leftover food from the community kitchen 115 is stored in public refrigerator 120 for public consumption; electricity produced in solar panels 125 and the solar farm 126 is used to power houses 114 and common areas; manure produced in livestock buildings 107 are used in the biofuel plant 128 to create biofuel; and waste from the biofuel plant 128 can be used as fertilizer for the agroforestry fruit trees 104, the silvopastures fields 105, and the agriculture areas 108.
It is to be understood that the sustainable, eco-friendly community is not limited to the specific embodiments described above but encompasses any and all embodiments within the scope of the generic language of the following claims enabled by the embodiments described herein, or otherwise shown in the drawings or described above in terms sufficient to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the claimed subject matter.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/197,568, filed on Jun. 7, 2021.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63197568 | Jun 2021 | US |
