Pacific Treelodge Resort: glass for sand and sand for glass
When a glass bottle enters Kosrae, a six cent tax is paid. After being used, local residents bring the glass bottle to the recycling operator (MEI), who pays five cents for it. MEI then gets back 6 cents from the State. The one cent profit covers the recycling center's operating costs. Therefore, each bottle brought to Kosrae, nets a five cent income for the community. As there is currently no demand for crushed glass the MEI’s warehouse would have be filled to capacity, and the project stopped, if we had not begun using this recovered material for a practical purpose.
Sobre Você
Dados de Contato
Título
ms
Nome
Maria
Sobrenome
STEPHENS
Your job title
Your Job Title
Nome da sua organização
Pacific Treelodge Resort
Organization type
business
Orçamento anual/moeda
Annual Budget/Currency
Mailing address
PO Box 637
Telephone number
3707856
Postal/Zip Code
96944
Country
Endereço de email
Endereço de email alternativo
Sua ideia
Este será o endereço utilizado para posicionar sua inscrição no mapa.
Street Address
PO Box 637
City
Lelu
Estado/Província
Kosrae
Postal/Zip Code
96944
Country
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists , Quality of benefit to residents for the destination , Quality of tourism management by destination leadership , Quality of stewardship of the destination.
Organization size
Small (1 to 100 employees)
Indicate sector in which you principally work
Tourism-related business
Year innovation began
2008
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
General tourism.
Dê um nome ao seu projeto
Pacific Treelodge Resort: glass for sand and sand for glass
Descreva Sua Ideia
When a glass bottle enters Kosrae, a six cent tax is paid. After being used, local residents bring the glass bottle to the recycling operator (MEI), who pays five cents for it. MEI then gets back 6 cents from the State. The one cent profit covers the recycling center's operating costs. Therefore, each bottle brought to Kosrae, nets a five cent income for the community. As there is currently no demand for crushed glass the MEI’s warehouse would have be filled to capacity, and the project stopped, if we had not begun using this recovered material for a practical purpose.
INOVAÇÃO
What is the goal of your innovation? Please describe in one sentence the kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Our goal is to reduce the dredging of our beaches and the quantity of waste material in the landfill by using crushed glass, instead of sand, as aggregate in concrete
Please write an overview of your project. Include how your approach supports or embodies geotourism or destination stewardship. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the map located on the competition homepage.
When a glass bottle enters Kosrae, a six cent tax is paid. After being used, local residents bring the glass bottle to the recycling operator (MEI), who pays five cents for it. MEI then gets back 6 cents from the State. The one cent profit covers the recycling center's operating costs. Therefore, each bottle brought to Kosrae, nets a five cent income for the community. As there is currently no demand for crushed glass the MEI’s warehouse would have be filled to capacity, and the project stopped, if we had not begun using this recovered material for a practical purpose.
Explain in detail why your approach is innovative
At the moment, we are the only ones on the island experimenting with the use of discarded glass bottles, instead of sand, as aggregate in concrete.
Impacto
Crianças & Jovens
Describe the degree of success you have had to date. How do you measure, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact on sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How has it transformed or contributed to the power of place or demonstrated the sustainability of tourism? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
Through our work, we are showing the community how it is possible to use crushed glass as aggregate. This project contributes strongly to the sustainable development of the island with its positive economic, sociological, and ecological effects. Money paid to the families for the recovered materials creates a small sub economy; a cleaner island improves the quality of Kosrae life; our ocean, mangroves, and land are saved from hundreds of cubic feet of trash glass; and the dredging activity of sand is drastically reduced. One of the greatest benefits of this project to the community is that they can get this crushed glass for free without impacting the environment, as opposed to paying for sand. Furthermore, glass bottles are crushed using solar energy.
Crianças & Jovens
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your work, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
Local residents sell the glass bottles to Micronesia Eco Inc. (which also collects cans, plastic bottles, and lead batteries) receiving five cents for each item. For some locals that is a significant personal income. Every week many of residents come to sell this thousand of recovered material. We are using, and promoting the use of this recovered glass (currently stacked in the MEI’s warehouse) for the continuity to the project.
Crianças & Jovens
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
Visitors appreciate the local efforts to preserve the island’s natural beauty, and to keep it clean from recyclable materials. Our tourists are informed of our project when they arrive, and they are encouraged to use the recycling bins to separate their trash during their visit to Kosrae. Additionally we teach tourists to respect the ocean and land and not to leave trash lying around the island.
Describe how your work helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues.
Tourists, generally coming from developed countries, easily understand the value of a cultural and natural heritage, and how it’s connected to a respect for the surrounding environment. The recycling project helps reducing the amount of trash around the ruins and natural beuties. Local residents have to satisfy their primary needs (re: Maslow's Pyramid), as such they have an incentive to take care of their environment.
Temas relacionados à inscrição
SUSTENTABILIDADE
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
Our initiative is autofinanced
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?
Our initiative is financially and organizationally sustainable. Public work and other private businesses can use the recovered crushed glass for asphalting, paving the roads, or as aggregate in the cement used for houses, schools, or hundreds of other projects.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
The only barrier to the growth of this project is the lack of proper glass crushing machinery.
What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
Research shows that manufacturing a sand product from recycled glass is a promising solution anywhere beaches are eroding. Faced with the constant erosion of our front beaches, we'd like trying to use recycled glass, crushed into tiny grains, as an alternative to natural sand. Thus eliminating the costs and negative impact of dredging in the ocean. For this we need more sophisticated machinery.
A História
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
My family manages the Pacific Treelodge Resort, Micronesia Grand Tour, and Micronesia Eco inc. (the recycling operator). I received a degree in Economics with a thesis in “Sustainable development and creation of new jobs” and worked for several years in an environmental-friendly company. My husband is actively involved in the conservation of the ocean surrounding Kosrae, the mooring buoy project, and the protection of coral reefs.
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.
My family has a long-term commitment to operating businesses in a manner beneficial to the sustainable development of Kosrae. Our environmental, economic and social policies include a pledge to help recycle waste materials, conserve energy, protect the mangrove forests, and monitor the health of the ocean. We encourage the consumption of local produce and promote new eco-friendly initiatives and investments. As residents of a small island in the middle of the Pacific, we are committed to protecting our environment from the dangers of coastal erosion and dredging activities.
Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.
Currently we are paving our resort using concrete made with the glass bottles that our tourists drink. Their bottles, instead of going to the landfill, are put to practical use forever as a part of our resort. Furthermore, the beaches and coral reefs are safer from dredging, and Kosrae is a cleaner place, as a result of this project.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
This field has not been completed. (100 words or less)
| Anexo | Tamanho |
|---|---|
| Collecting Glass.jpg | 44.12 KB |
| collecting glass 2.jpg | 37.79 KB |
| Glass as aggregate.JPG | 591.52 KB |
| Treelodge Glass Walkway.JPG | 545.98 KB |
 | 213 semanas atrás Maria Grazia Fanelli disse: Thanks a lot for your comments and suggestions. We believe and hope that this model will be applicable to other islands or places in the ... sobre esse Competition Entry. - leia mais > |
| 213 semanas atrás Ariane Grazian disse: I noticed that one of your fields, professional development and partnerships, is blank. I think you are an organization that could ... sobre esse Competition Entry. - leia mais > |
| 213 semanas atrás Pamela List disse: I find this to be a really interesting idea. The benefits seem enormous, for both the residents and visitors. The visitors enjoy the ... sobre esse Competition Entry. - leia mais > |
| 214 semanas atrás Joseph Terpstra disse: I think this idea is not only innovative, but even a more creative way to go about recycling. Not only does the local community benefit ... sobre esse Competition Entry. - leia mais > |
| 214 semanas atrás Raija Sanford disse: I think that this is a a great place to start and a great model for other island communities, especially in the South Pacific. It is ... sobre esse Competition Entry. - leia mais > |
| 217 semanas atrás Maria Grazia Fanelli enviou esta ideia. |