and we have liftoff!

After what seems to have been seven long months of meetings, passing unfathomable hours waiting outside of the offices of the big wigs in town, giving power point presentations, meetings, and then, just for fun, a few more meetings, it seems our work is finally taking off. Tom is well on his way to getting the water lab that will help ensure that we’re all drinking good clean water here, and I’m finding myself busy every day with my projects, the first of which is starting a trash program for our town of Okinawa and its 6,000 inhabitants.

Currently, no trash pick-up program exists here, and families either burn their trash (plastics, tires, diapers and all) or they toss it in a nearby lagoon (or, in the case of diapers, our front yard) which, you probably guessed, isn’t very good for anyone. My initial goal in implementing a trash program is to start a sanitation committee to head up the project, and then, with their help, start a municipal wide composting program, to be followed by a plastic recycling program.

Last Thursday we held our first trash meeting, to which we invited all the Mr. and Mrs. Importants of the town. With a good crew in attendance, we played some games to identify and categorize what’s in our trashcans (or burn piles, rather), listened to the opinions, concerns, and ideas of the town’s leaders, and proposed some viable and sustainable solutions to the question of what be done with all this trash.

We’ve figured that over 70% of the trash produced in the community is organic (mostly leaves and kitchen scraps) and can be turned into valuable compost which the community can then use for gardening and reforestation projects and prettying up the local parks. Another 15-20% of the trash is plastics, most of which can be recycled in Santa Cruz, the big city two hours from here. There is no landfill for Okinawa yet, which means there is currently nowhere we can take our trash and dump it. To me, this is a bonus.

Here at this beginning stage of the process we have the opportunity to get people in the habit of separating their trash into organics, recyclables, and ‘other’ –that 10%-15% that has no better destination than the landfill. By starting a trash program with organics and plastics we can greatly diminish the amount of waste that will eventually find its way to the landfill, reducing the environmental impact on the area and cutting costs. Selling trash will probably never bring in the big bucks, but it makes good sense to turn the recyclable components of our waste into profits or reusable products instead of spending money to haul them to a landfill, which would fill quickly and, undoubtedly, have a negative impact on the ecosystem surrounding it.

The people at our meeting were receptive to our ideas and eager to get started on creating a trash program, educate families, and involve people from all sectors of the community. I didn’t realize it until a few days after our meeting, but this is grass roots in the works. Through community participation, creativity, and the use of the limited resources available to them, this is a small group of people working to change their world for the better. This is why I’m here. This is awesome.

On our plate for this week my work partner, Seberiano, and I are scoping out places to build the composting center and are planning our second trash meeting for May 15th, when we will hold elections to make the sanitation committee a formal entity and get this party started. We’re also talking about building a biodigester in a nearby community, an amazing contraption that turns poop (from cows) into fertilizer and captures the methane gas that is produced in the process, which can then be used as fuel for stoves and lamps. Incredible stuff. Innovative, environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and a huge boon to the sanitation and health of a community.

When I got the invitation to be a basic sanitation volunteer last March, I admit, I was skeptical about taking a job that entails managing poop and trash. Ah, but here I am, my hands deep in both, and I’m having a ball.




Here´s some pics from the communities where we´re working:

Sister Nora, head of the nuns and power house of a woman.

Some of the ladies we work with at the mom´s clubs

And the kids. So cute.

And this is a picture of a meeting. Neither cute nor interesting. But it´s my life.

This is my preferred outfit and office: