WASTE USES AND MANAGEMENT- How serious are you?

Did you know that The Sands at Nomad has a ‘Green Team’ dedicated to managing the impact of the Hotel and Restaurant. Their days are made up of Waste Management and record keeping, Beach and Road clean-ups, HDPE waste Plastic shredding, making items from the shredded Plastic, up-cycling ‘waste’ bottles into drinking glasses, re-using ‘waste’ Meats to make Pet food, Marine Reserve observation and reporting, keeping the Nomad forest trails open and growing Organic Vegetables and Herbs.

One of the most time consuming jobs we have been at this past week has been literally ‘picking’ through soil and sand to remove any non-biodegradable waste items. The Photo above is of some of the soil and wood waste mix from The Sand’s workshop area, this is cleaned again before being added to the giant compost piles we are making, or if it’s more soil than wood, it becomes one of the new raised beds for planting.

Also into the compost piles (as one of the many layers) goes some of the wood chips and chicken ‘scat’ from the chicken houses. (See photo’s below). Now with the rains here it is only a matter of time before the Siafu (Army Ants) begin their Carnivorous ‘spring cleaning’. Leaving old scat in the house attracts bugs, which attract Siafu… and it is far more useful in compost.

Did you know that Poultry manure contains 13 essential plant nutrients including the main ones.. Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium? Now you do.. please note its is wise to make compost from the manure, don’t just throw it on the farm.

We have come a long way since we first started making these massive compost piles. To ensure enough ‘wet’ layering we have only added ‘dry’ layers once we have had a good load of fresh fruit and vegetable waste from The Nomad Beach Bar.

In the photo above left one can see the ‘aerated’ base of the newest compost pile we are working on. Note the green leaves visible within signifying the layer of wet already inside. Photo above right, the piles gain height as they gain layers, the last batch of organic waste in from the Nomad Juice bar where fresh juices are made daily.

Some Organic waste is used in compost making like above, other, like leaves or coconut husk can be used as Mulch. (Below Left). However, before all of it goes elsewhere we always like to make sure that our Worms in our Wormary and our Black Fly Larvae are all fed also.. otherwise how would we get the nutrient rich Worm castings or such nice little fat grubs to feed the chickens? (Below Right)

As we have been doing clear-outs of old items in stores, we have been separating and collecting the various types of waste as we go and looking for ways to reuse them, repurpose them or, failing this, recycle them.

Below are two photos of two separated piles ready for further sorting and delivery to the recycling plants. Clear glass (RHS) has a market for a recycler from Mombasa, other colour bottles we repurpose ourselves.

The ‘plastics’ seen below left will be ‘scavenged’ for HDPE plastics which will then be shredded by The Flipflopi recycling crew who pass by The Sands on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The plastic shredder used by both us at the Sands and our partners in caring above was made Plasticirafiki. which is a Nairobi based, student led organisation focused on cleaning the environment as well as looking to create employment through the creation of a recycling industry.

The other types of plastic will be delivered to the Kwale Plastic’s Plus Collectors site for recycling. KPPC is the social enterprise arm of the Flipiflopi.

Below is some of the collected waste from this mornings beach clean, one can see clearly that plastic and rubber are by far the most numerous type of waste choking our Oceans. Think twice before buying plastic products or containers. Thanks for reading.

THE SANDS, THINKING GREEN (and Blue 🙂 AS ALWAYS.