A while ago I heard about the system that Indigenous people of the Amazon Rainforest use to not destroy the soil that they farm on. When I heard about it, I was really impressed at how someone could figure out how reuse and recycle so cleverly.

Indigenous tribes such as Yanomamo and Kayapo have been living in the Amazon Rainforest for thousands of years and have detailed knowledge on how the nature of the Rainforest works and how to use it. The Indigenous people are deeply spiritual and have always believed that land=life.  They will do anything to preserve and not hurt the land they are occupying.  

What they basically do is they stay in one place for 4 years and then move to another piece of land. They find a clear piece of land and settle down in a new place, plant food, put up a place to live and so on. And for the next 4 years they grow food, eat and live there. By the end of the 4 years the soil is tired and all the nutrients have been used up, so the harvest progressively starts getting smaller and smaller. That is when the tribe sets a fire and burns all the plants. The burned remains of plants act as a fertilizer for the soil so it can grow healthy again. The tribe moves and finds a new place and so on the cycle goes.

This method is the epitome of recycling and reusing, usually there are parts you can’t recycle or reuse so they go to waste. But here there is no waste, everything can go in this circle forever, these people can practically never run out of resources!