Eco friendly solutions in St Maarten / Sint Martin
Every family, business, and individual should have a hurricane preparation plan. This can be broken down into things to do now, once under a hurricane watch, once under a hurricane warning, during the storm, and immediately after. This advice is not extensive – remember to take your own unique situation into account.
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Every home and business should have a basic emergency kit year round. This includes drinking water, food, first aid, and communication.  In our opinion, this is not enough for hurricane season, but hurricanes are not the only disaster we should be preparing for. We live in a region where earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, flash floods, fuel shortages, and communications issues are possible at any moment.
Being prepared in an emergency, and knowing how to respond, is invaluable. It can help reduce the fear, anxiety, and losses that accompany disasters. Write up your Hurricane Preparation Plan and Hurricane Preparation Kit list NOW, before a storm threatens.
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The Green SXM Pilot Compost Project is an add-as-you-go pile designed and scaled to process the waste created in a restaurant that serves between 400-500 meals a week. While the restaurant could provide more waste, we chose the 1 cubic meter limit because of the work required balancing the fruit and vegetable waste with enough carbon. Also, 40-50 lbs of food waste every two days is just the right amount to mix in one standard size wheelbarrow.
Continue reading “Green SXM Pilot Compost Project: Intro and Week 1”
Every home and business needs a hurricane preparation plan, a basic emergency kit, and a hurricane preparation kit. The needs will vary from household to household, so start thinking NOW about what you might need.
While the forecast tracks were reasonably accurate during the 2017 season, the intensity forecasts were not. A minor storm can become a major hurricane much faster than expected. Don’t count on a small storm staying small. It is better to be over prepared than under prepared.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PRINTABLE PDF
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On May 1st 2018 Hawaii passed a historic bill banning the sale of sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate. Both chemicals are known to cause coral bleaching. Reef safe sunscreen and SPF protective clothing are readily available.
Coral reefs have three important economic impacts – protecting coasts from erosion, promoting a diverse and healthy ocean, and of course tourism. Without coral, our life and livelihood will be severely challenged.
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A lot of our waste can skip the landfill and go straight to the compost. If you find yourself wondering ‘What Can I compost?’ here is a handy list! For more information on balancing greens (nitrogen sources) and browns (carbon sources), please see Composting 101.
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Did you know that your kitchen sink is a warm wet breading ground for bacteria?  An average kitchen sponge can house E. coli, salmonella, and a whole host of bacteria that we don’t really want to keep around in abundance.  Here are a few kitchen sponge alternatives, and some reasons why you may want to consider using them Continue reading “Kitchen Sponge Alternatives”
It was wonderful to finally hear some facts and figures comparing waste management in Saint Martin with that of the South side in a Parliament Meeting. There have been complaints of French trucks bringing French waste over the boarder (The Daily Herald, 21st March 2018) – but few have gone far enough to explain why, until MP Frans Richardson mentioned it in Public Meeting #19.  (Link to the feed here – It starts about 1 hour 12 minutes into the meeting)
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Anyone who has tried to garden in rocky clay-based soils knows the challenge: you need to add organic matter to encourage both water drainage and retention. We needed an easy way to remove the rocks from the ground, as well as process the large amounts of compost necessary to build healthy soil. We built a DIY rotating compost screen that is robust enough to sift the soil and also doubles as a workbench.
Continue reading “DIY Rotating Compost Screen – Tutorial”
