A Texas professor has decided to make a dumpster his home for the next year in an attempt to educate his students about sustainable living.
Dr. Jeff Wilson sold all of his belongings and is getting ready to move into the dumpster.
According to KXAN, the idea came to the professor when he was sitting at a Starbucks pondering ways to make his teachings more significant to the students.
“I was revising a journal article thinking about how could I make my research more applicable to student learning, and then I looked out the window and saw the Dumpster and thought, ‘That’s it,’” said Professor Wilson.
My FOX Austin notes that the project consists of three different phases.
"In the average American Dumpster Home Phase, we are actually gonna link into the grid and measure how much water and energy we use as we add appliances," Wilson explained. "The Uber Dumpster Phase, the third one, we'll actually have solar panels. We'll actually be putting power back on the grid when we produce more than we use."
Space isn't the only issue that Wilson will have to overcome when living in this 6 by 6 foot dumpster. He will have to deal with extremely high temperatures during the summer as well as winter lows.
The Ford Foundation has donated $75,000 toward Wilson's project. By the end of the experiment, the Texas professor hopes to answer the following question.
“Can you have a pretty good life living in 1 percent of the average new American home with 1 percent the energy, 1 percent the water, and 1 percent the waste?”
A Dumpster Warming Party will be held on the campus of Huston-Tillotson University in East Austin.