Category: Environment

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Sargassum Mulch – Green SXM Pilot Compost Project: Week 7

The area in front of the compost bins is either muddy or dusty, with a few opportunistic weeds inbetween.  To help control this, we decided to add sargassum mulch.

Sargassum is best collected by hand just above the surf line – anything above is usually already smelly and full of flies and gnats.

As we were mulching a path, the sargassum wasn’t rinsed.  We applied it 6” thick, working in small patches as collecting seaweed is a heavy job!

Sargassum found in St Maarten
Sargassum found in St Maarten – used here as 6” of mulch.

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Green SXM Pilot Compost Project: Week 2 Recap & How to Grow Pineapples from Pineapple Tops

Temperatures have remained between 133 and 155 degrees Fahrenheit.  The composter is now just over half full.

Green SXM Pilot Compost Project: Week 1 Recap
Green SXM Pilot Compost Project: Week 2 Recap.  The pineapple tops from the restaurant waste have been saved to go in the garden.

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Green SXM Pilot Compost Project: Intro and Week 1

Green SXM Pilot Compost Project

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.

Green SXM Pilot Compost Project: Week 1

Green SXM Pilot Compost Project: Week 1

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Reef Safe Sunscreen

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.

Save Our Coral Reefs! Reef Safe Sunscreen
Save Our Coral Reefs! Reef Safe Sunscreen – Image credit: Toby Hudson (Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

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Waste Management in Saint Martin

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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Plastic Attack

Have you ever heard of a plastic attack?  Also known as a shop and drop, it is a demonstration where people protest against excessive supermarket plastic packaging by buying their products and leaving all the packaging behind.  They are taking the world by storm, from Ireland to the Netherlands.

We don't need to cover our planet in plastic!
We don’t need to cover our planet in plastic!  Image from clairesnaturefriendlylife on Instagram.

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Plastic Free Bathroom

One of the areas we can make the biggest zero waste difference is in our bathrooms.  On top of helping the environment, zero waste bathrooms can also save us money.  A plastic free bathroom is getting easier and easier, thanks to the increasing global awareness over the fate of much of our plastic waste.  Plastic is virtually forever.  It doesn’t disappear, it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.  It is in our bodies, our food, our water, and our oceans.

Plastic Free Bathroom
Plastic Free Bathroom.  Helping the environment while saving you money; a win for all!

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