Could you live without compromising health of cleanliness with out dependence on someone taking away your trash? There is no away for us. Is there really an away for anyone on earth. It is our oceans we are filling up with garbage, it is our air we are polluting, it is our water and earth we are poisoning.
Every area in Saint Michael’s has a compost spot. Outside the kitchens, there are Banana circles. Our trash here becomes great soil for growing more food. We save the best scraps for the chickens. The buckets of chicken food are left to ferment before feeding the egg laying chickens.
Not everything can be composted or given to the chickens. For example, you wouldn’t want to feed chicken to the chickens. But, feeding them eggshells is encouraged. We put the eggs in a separate bucket in the sun to dry them out before powering them with a big stick and feeding them back to the birds. If you have pigs or dogs you can feed them the meat scraps. Be sure to boil your chicken bones (preferably in a pressure cooker to
We recently finished a home that left a lot of wood that would normally be burnt in Costa Rica and elsewhere. We dug a 100-yard trench to use it as a soil amendment. It will hold more water than the clay that was there.
Some of the scraps are burnt. But, we bury the fire underground to keep carbon from escaping into the atmosphere. The wood burnt without oxygen creates charcoal. We inoculate the charcoal with effective microorganisms, EMs, and sugar water. This part of our bokashi or pre-digested soil holds the EMs that give out plants the ability to absorb up to 2000 times more water through the good fungal subsoil network we are helping create. It reduces the need for watering and protects the plants in times of drought.
The best way to reduce your waste is not to produce waste that can not be easily reused. Store food in reusable containers. Use reusable bags for shopping.
When you buy, pick products that have returnable or refillable packing.
Don’t buy individually wrapped items, snack packs, and single-serve containers like bottled water
Find creative ways to put your wast to good use. We line the paths of the greenhouse to keep weeds at bay. Plastic bottles become pots for plants. Pieces of plastic become plant markers, and one day soon we will use the unusable plastic for insulation on a prefabricated wall system.
ecovillagecostarica
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