112 results for tag: compost

Better, Cheaper, Faster: Researching Ways to Improve SOIL’s Composting Process

Over the last six months, SOIL has made exciting and significant progress in expanding access to dignified and reliable sanitation for vulnerable communities in Haiti.  In order to continue on this upward trend, we at SOIL are working hard to produce innovative approaches to support our growth strategy to accommodate more households on the service and the additional increase in waste to treat.   To help with our strategy, we are once again partnering with Human Centered Design experts, Lukas Baumgartner and Jojo Linder, consultants from Kreativ Konsum and Kompotoi. The creative design duo, has worked with us on a number of projects to improve ...

Celebrate World Soil Day!

photo courtesy of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Agriculture is Haiti’s main industry and makes up over 60% of the workforce nationwide. However, food production can be quite challenging for many farmers in Haiti due to heavily degraded soils as a result of exploitative production like deforestation and over-intensive agricultural practices during the colonial era. Before farmers are able to support the growth of bountiful harvests or reforestation initiatives, degraded soils need to be restored and brought back to a natural balance. Maintaining soil health and biodiversity is critical to establishing resilient ecosys...

A Vision for the Future: The Circular Economy Model

In 2006, SOIL began working to provide safe, dignified access to in-home sanitation in Haiti, through our EkoLakay toilet service. Since then, the situation in Haiti, and the world at large, has become increasingly complicated. The dread of climate change has become an indisputable reality, exacerbating preexisting vulnerabilities, including the global sanitation crisis. Both the impacts of climate change and the pressing need to find sustainable solutions that make our planet and people more resilient have helped to frame SOIL’s model. Since its founding, SOIL has sought to revolutionize the approach to sanitation by piloting a circular ...

Increasing climate resilience: how Konpòs Lakay helps agriculture producers during drought

Haiti is currently ranked third in the Global Climate Risk Index  as being  particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Climate change impacts Haiti in a number of ways: increases in the intensity and frequency of hurricanes, flooding, landslides due to soil erosion, and also drought brought about by erratic rainfall patterns, which is compounded by a lack of water management systems. Drought can be particularly devastating to agriculture production, but also contributes to lack of food security and malnourishment. SOIL’s regenerative sanitation solution seeks to not only offer better sanitation options for vulnerable urban communi...

Composting to Restore Soil Health with Konpòs Lakay

In rural areas of Haiti, agriculture production and farming are important occupations for many people. Agriculture is Haiti’s main industry and makes up over 60% of the workforce, with main global exports including mangoes, coffee, papayas and spinach. However, food production can still be quite challenging for many farmers due to depleted soils and periods of drought. Additionally, years of foreign intervention and policy have forced Haiti to rely heavily on cheap global imports for food supply, which has distorted the market for some crops, leaving the supply chains within and into Haiti fragile. This limits access to good sources of food for many ...

Yale Climate Connections: As the planet warms, can we afford to treat poop as waste?

photo credit: Yale Climate Connections For centuries, people have been using human waste as a precious commodity for soil fertilization around the world. In fact, night soil, the term given to the human waste product, has had entire economies built around it as a means for sustainable agriculture production from Asia to the Amazon. A recent article in Yale Climate Connections provided some insight into understanding why we have wandered so far from these roots, how that has impacted climate change, and if it is time once again to rethink human waste as a valuable commodity. Prior to World War II, livestock manure management was an integral part of ...

Meet Marckindy, SOIL’s Composting Supervisor

Marckindy onsite at SOIL’s composting waste treatment site in Mouchinette, Northern Haiti. A couple of months ago we sat down with Marckindy Etienne, SOIL’s Composting Supervisor, to talk about his work, his connection to SOIL, and his thoughts on the role sanitation and compost can play in Haiti’s future. Marckindy has been a part of the SOIL family since his first internship in 2012, and he’s known of SOIL for even longer through his brother, Job (SOIL’s Composting Manager). A condensed version of his interview follows, translated from Haitian Creole into English. We hope you enjoy getting to know Marckindy as much as we enjoy getting to ...

Avi rekritman

Rezime: SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) travay an Ayiti pou transfòme dechè an resous itil depi lane 2006. Misyon nou se kore diyite, lasante ak travay sosyal dirab nan transfòmasyon dechè an resous enpòtan pou lanati. Sèvis EkoLakay se yon sevis twalèt inovatif ke SOIL lanse depi 2011 nan Okap. EkoLakay genyen pliske 1000 kliyan ki peye chak mwa pou yon koleksyon ki fasilite tout matyè a trete epi transfòme nan yon konpòs. Konpòs sa, ki rele Konpos Lakay, rive teste nan laboratwa avan li anbale epi vann sou mache nasyonal la pou itilize nan domenn agrikòl la. Direksyon SOIL vle avèti tout moun ke li genyen yon pòs ...

Cultivating Food Production with 2,000 Bags of Compost

Haiti’s local food systems have been hit hard by the worsening political and economic situation in Haiti, with ongoing challenges for farmers trying to get their food to markets, and for families facing devastating price increases. As a result, food scarcity has worsened in Haiti for some of the country’s most vulnerable communities. Though the underlying problems are complex and stem beyond degraded soils alone, the growing challenges for local farmers and families struggling to put food on the table is a strong reminder of the critical need to invest in efforts to increase local production. By treating and transforming waste into organic ...

Training a New Generation of Sanitation Researchers

SOIL intern, Wenley Moïse, extracting samples from the liquid filters installed underneath SOIL's composting bins to take to the lab for testing. SOIL loves providing opportunities for students in Haiti to work with our team and gain valuable hands-on experience in the sanitation sector to help jumpstart their careers. Over the past six months, SOIL research partner Dr. Rebecca Ryals has been conducting a study on optimal composting conditions at our waste treatment facilities. The study looks at whether using different lining materials (concrete vs. a natural soil lining) in the composting bins impacts the leaching of nutrients or pathogens ...