Replace the Poopmobile!
Our beloved Poopmobile has died after 3 years of transporting drums from the Port-au-Prince tent camps to the SOIL compost site, and we are not able to fix it. We have spent the last 2 weeks using our 2 pickups to transport 300 drums per week, but this means we have had to suspend other operations and it is taking a real toll on the pickups, which are not built for such heavy loads. We desperately need to buy a new truck, but the $35,000 price tag is outside of our current budget. More than 5,000 people living in tent cities around...
read moreGood Compost and Beautiful Gardens Make Good Neighbors!
Last Tuesday, we had a visit from our neighbors–all 14 of them. They wanted to know who we were, what we did, and why we were doing it. Our inquisitive neighbors from nearby Harmony House orphanage and they ranged in age from 7 to 17 years of age. They quickly declared that they were particularly fond of our compost. They told us of their previously unsuccessful efforts to transform food scrap into composts. So when we told them of our success with transforming human waste into compost, they were all ears! What more, it was a field day...
read moreLet Sleeping Cows Lie: SOIL Executive Director Mauled by Cow
As many of you know SOIL’s dear Executive Director Sasha Kramer loves animals. Unfortunately, while attempting to wake up Uit the cow for a late night snack of a hot, salty potato, Sasha became tangled in Uit’s lead rope and was dragged across the field at the SOIL farm in Limonade. Sasha has thankfully since recovered, but she may reconsider the timing for giving hot, salty potato snacks to cows. We hope that you enjoy the reenactment photos below and remember to let sleeping cows lie.
read moreThe SOIL and The Forest
On June 4th 2013, members of the SOIL agricultural teams from Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien will travel to Sadhana Forest, a remote ecovillage on the southeastern border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Located in what is known as the ‘boukara‘, or desert, of Anse-à-Pitre, Haiti, Sadhana Forest is a ecological restoration project that focuses on creating long-term food security for the area of Anse-à-Pitre. SOIL and Sadhana Forest will collaborate to host an intensive two weeks immersion course on permaculture or what is...
read morePermaculture Magazine: Recycling Human Waste to Improve Sanitation and Produce Food
By Mark Sanders in Permaculture Magazine on Wednesday, 8th May 2013. Haiti is often seen as having the worst sanitation and clean water access in the Western hemisphere. But with the help of SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods), waste resources are being transformed into compost, sanitation is improving and local food production is being revived. Mark Sanders, a civil engineer explains his research visit to the SOIL project in Haiti. As the global use of inorganic mined fertilisers increases, so do the resulting environmental...
read moreSOIL To Help Host a Permaculture Design Certificate Course in June
This June, SOIL staff will be collaborating with the people at Sadhana Forest in Anse-à-Pitres, Haiti to offer a Permaculture Design Certificate Course in Haitian Creole. SOIL’s new Sustainability and Capacity Development Consultant, Jean Arnaud, will be leading the two week course that will cover a wide range of topics such as organic food production, ecological pest management, erosion control, drought proofing, energy conservation, and eco-friendly housing design. Participants for this sold-out class will earn a Permaculture...
read moreTheatre Group Promotes SOIL EcoSan Toilets in Haiti
In order to reach people who would most benefit from ecological sanitation, such as those in Cap-Haitien’s crowded slums without modern plumbing or electricity, SOIL is using innovative methods to break down cultural barriers towards ecological sanitation. SOIL has been collaborating with a small theatre group to develop a 20-minute sketch promoting the EcoSan toilets SOIL has been providing and maintaining over the years. Here is recap of the story, for entertainment, and for a better understanding of common obstacles SOIL has overcome over...
read moreGrowing Shade for Trutier
As frequent readers of the SOIL blog will know, our composting waste treatment site in Port-au-Prince is housed within the boundaries of the municipal dump, Trutier. The Trutier dump site has long been one of the city’s most degraded and harsh environments, thereby making it an exemplary location to showcase SOIL’s land rehabilitation capabilities. The Trutier site is managed by SMCRS (the government solid waste management department) and a company called SOTEK has recently been contracted to conduct a debris recycling project....
read moreTheo Talks Episode 12: Making UD Toilet Seats
Join SOIL’s charismatic Regional Director Theo Huitema on another adventure in EcoSan. This time Theo shows how SOIL’s new vacuformer tool enables the SOIL team to make low-cost urine diversion (UD) seats. Now every part of SOIL’s EcoSan toilets are made or purchased locally. Learn more about the vacufomer here (made from a vacuum cleaner, a stove top burner and a roll of aluminum foil) and watch the rest of the Theo Talk series here. Enjoy watching! Check out the entire Theo Talks series...
read moreTransforming Wastes Into Resources: Global Edition!
We are a population of over seven billion people, living in a world with increasingly scarce resources. Looking forward, there is one resource – often overlooked – that is perpetually available: human waste. The moniker ‘waste’ is indicative of general global perceptions: feces are to be discarded, and nothing more. For nearly seven years SOIL has endeavored to transform wastes into resources in Haiti, both through the physical transformation of human waste into rich, organic compost, and by de-stigmatizing waste within...
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