By Antony Bond (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #342) on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - 3:10 pm: |
As someone had the inspiration to start a category on the Environment (bravo), I thought that it may be a good platform for people to share their ideas to limit unnecessary waste.
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By Yo MO - Meet me at the 3Day in Atlanta (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3701) on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - 4:24 pm: |
Take your plastic home (back to the country you came from, not to the place you are staying on island). You can squish it, stuff it, stash it and then when you get home trash it responsibly.
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By Carole B. (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #6738) on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - 11:09 pm: |
Hi, Mo & Antony! I saved up all of our plastic waste from this recent trip in order to bring it home with us to recycle here in the states....I had it all rinsed and ready to be packed into the bag when the cleaning staff at the Divi guessed it might be "trash" one day while we were snorkeling and she took it away....we did not realize this until about 8 hours after she did it so we could not go back and "reclaim" our plastic waste.
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By Nathalie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #270) on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 - 7:09 pm: |
Shall we cut and paste when we add on so we have an ever growing list?
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By Antony Bond (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #346) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 6:42 am: |
Good idea Natalie.
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By Nathalie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #271) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 7:07 am: |
1: Take your used batteries home with you. Disposing them on Bonaire means that they end up on landfill, seep into the ground and end up as a snack for the goats.
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By Tribs, Live From Bonaire (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #6224) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 7:48 am: |
Good stuff everyone but I feel compelled to comment about bringing the recyclable material back to the US. Please understand that a lot of recycling does not happen in the US. Companies ship it to China and the situation there is deplorable. Your overall best solution is to reduce the waste you create. You can do this by purchasing items in less packaging. You can also recycle your own paper by making home made stationary or wrapping paper out of it. Etc...
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By Kevin W. Williams (Bella Vista Estates) (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #557) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 10:46 am: |
One other point: don't drink bottled water anywhere in the civilized world, not just Bonaire. It's a triple-header: useless, wasteful, and expensive. It consumes energy to create a polluting container, consumes energy for trucks to carry the polluting containers full of water, energy for trucks to carry the empties. If your municipal water isn't good enough to drink, work to fix that. If people would fund their municipal water companies at anywhere near the money they spend on buying bottled water, those municipal plants could create the same quality of water for everyone at a much lower price and with much less environmental impact.
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By Fid Chinoy (BonaireTalker - Post #57) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 1:22 pm: |
Tell that to the families of the six people who died in Walkerton Ontario a couple of years back. There had been many warnings and yet no one with authority did anything.
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By Seb (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3382) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 1:40 pm: |
Yes, but, you can filter tap water, you can reverse osmosis process tap water, and have your tap water tested, and have much less impact by doing so. And filtering the stuff is basically what the water companies do.
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By Nathalie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #272) on Friday, June 20, 2008 - 9:24 am: |
Let's keep this thread focused on specific suggestions for Bonaire visitors to minimize their negative impact on Bonaire. If others want to address broader issues, perhaps a different thread should be started for that. I'm hoping there are more good suggestions that can be added to the list. Not all of us will think every idea is good/practical, but every small step helps.
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By Kevin W. Williams (Bella Vista Estates) (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #559) on Friday, June 20, 2008 - 9:37 am: |
No reason to single out Polar. Amstel used reusable bottles when it brewed the beer on Curacao, but now uses a disposable bottle. The Belgian imports all come in reusable bottles, but there is no mechanism to return the bottles to Belgium, so no one handles the deposits. Balashi is the only brand of beer that comes in a reusable bottle that can actually be reused.
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By Boat Chick************** (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #5509) on Friday, June 20, 2008 - 10:22 am: |
Kevin, do you know how they separate it? After it's gone to the dump? We just returned from Jamaica, and they don't recycle plastic, but they do recycle glass. When we drank beer, wine, etc. from glass bottles, we collected them in one are of the room. When the cleaning gals came through, it was easy for them to collect and separate from the rest of the trash.
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By Kevin W. Williams (Bella Vista Estates) (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #560) on Friday, June 20, 2008 - 10:34 am: |
Commercial establishments are provided with bright yellow separate glass bins. It isn't done at the residential level. Most businesses don't mind if you put glass into their yellow bin. Most will get really pissed if you put trash into their yellow bin.
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By Jan Klos - ( Hamlet Bonaire #10) (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #649) on Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 8:07 am: |
Kevin, Great Tip!!! For those who do recycle by using some of the resorts yellow plastic bins, just remeber, Please do not put the cardboard boxes, or paper bags in the bins. Also for those residents, please do not place your cardboard, bags, or trash in the resort trash containers.
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By Antony Bond (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #348) on Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 9:06 am: |
Kevin.
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By Kevin W. Williams (Bella Vista Estates) (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #562) on Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 9:19 am: |
I know Divi carries Balashi as well. As for reusing the bottles, it's a simple matter of economics for an island brewery. When I looked into setting up a brewery on Bonaire, it quickly became obvious that the single largest expense would be shipping containers full of empty bottles around. Reusables cut that cost by nearly 70%. It's not true for a remote brewery: if you have to container ship the empties back to Holland, you boost your operational costs by 30-40% over simply throwing them away and making new ones. That's why Amstel shifted from reusables to disposables. Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao are close enough together that Balashi still saves money by shipping the empties back and refilling them.
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By michael gaynor (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3176) on Sunday, June 22, 2008 - 8:34 am: |
As far as I know, Balashi is no longer going to be available on Bonaire. The local supplier said the shipping is way to expensive..so..Remember, Aruba is another country.
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By Hendrik Wuyts (BonaireTalker - Post #30) on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 3:47 pm: |
Bonaire has people who will help you with your waste batteries.
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By Detlef SCHWAGER (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #8) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - 5:08 am: |
See attached an article from Jul. 13, 2008 Boston Globe which includes some Ecological Sanitation examples:
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By Brian* (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3948) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - 5:48 am: |
1: Take your used batteries home with you. Disposing them on Bonaire means that they end up on landfill, seep into the ground and end up as a snack for the goats.
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By Fid Chinoy (BonaireTalker - Post #72) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - 6:49 pm: |
"12: Bring a re-usable water container to the island and fill it daily with wonderful Bonaire tap water. Don't buy bottled water on Bonaire - it's a waste of money and resources to bottle it and transport it to Bonaire all for water quality that is likely not as good as Bonaire tap water."
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By Kevin W. Williams (Bella Vista Estates) (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #575) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - 6:53 pm: |
Reverse osmosis distillation is pretty insensitive to the amount of fecal matter in the ocean water, so yes.
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By Detlef SCHWAGER (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #10) on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 3:54 am: |
By the nature of the reverse osmosis desalination the effluent of this treatment is highly concentrated salty water. This effluent is send to the ocean via a corrosion resistance pipe. The corrals like salty water but not high concentrated salty water like that. Furthermore, as fare I know the membrane of reverse osmosis needs to be cleaned from time to time. I am not sure which kind of chemical is used, but I guess this must be a very powerful substance and for sure not innocence to the nature. Where the used chemicals are “going” after use maybe the manager of WEB can clarify.
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By Pietri Hausmann (BonaireTalker - Post #32) on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 6:33 am: |
by WHO law the WEB water is tested twice daily in the WEB lab. ... WEB water consistently tests at WHO'S highest standards....
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By Pietri Hausmann (BonaireTalker - Post #33) on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 9:09 am: |
Detlef... years ago when my late husband was the operations manager for Aqua Design .. the reverse osmosis company.. cleaning was done by a process called "back-washing" which involved NO use of chemicals. for current information you may want to contact Aqua Design at E-Mail web@web.an
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By Pietri Hausmann (BonaireTalker - Post #34) on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 9:19 am: |
sorry but I forgot to mention that the highly concentrated salt water was not pumped into the ocean- all i can recall at this moment is that there was a special process in effect for this water as Aqua Design was well aware of the value of the Bonaire reefs and their protection. This is about all I can help you with .. I encourage you to contact Aqua Design - an international company producing fresh water by reverse osmosis world-wide.
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By Bruce (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #349) on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 4:37 pm: |
I wonder if they can send the concentrated salt water to the salt flats? That's what they use to make their product. Less evaporation needed.
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By Detlef SCHWAGER (BonaireTalker - Post #11) on Thursday, July 17, 2008 - 4:53 am: |
Dear All,
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By Detlef SCHWAGER (BonaireTalker - Post #12) on Thursday, July 17, 2008 - 6:33 am: |
two similar ecological sanitation concept examples more to reduce finally long-term running costs:
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By Brian* (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #3958) on Friday, July 18, 2008 - 12:21 pm: |
I just saw this on Habitats Web Site. What a great idea for the Hotel to do.
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By Jan Klos - ( Hamlet Bonaire ) (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #678) on Friday, July 18, 2008 - 3:40 pm: |
I also just read the article. I plan on forwarding it to the company that manages HOR.
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By Captain Don (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #345) on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - 9:47 am: |
For the moment. not worth the chasing for the thread on water conservation. Not a concern on bonaire. Yet. We have 804 swimming pools now. At least 11 more in construction.
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By Detlef SCHWAGER (BonaireTalker - Post #17) on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - 3:32 pm: |
Dear Captain Don,
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By John th'oldun (BonaireTalker - Post #38) on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - 4:50 pm: |
At the landfill Sunday I noticed a huge pile of glass bottles, dumped in the household waste section.
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By Detlef SCHWAGER (BonaireTalker - Post #20) on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - 5:06 pm: |
If I understand right Bonaire will be by 15.12.2008 part of NL and EU. Therefore, all the EU and NL environmental and water conservation laws will apply to Bonaire to.
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By Martin who loves his new email address (Supreme BonaireTalker - Post #4799) on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - 5:12 pm: |
Detlef,
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