Organic Recyling/Composting on Ambergris Caye: Who Knew?

A few weeks ago I saw an advert on Facebook and signed up immediately. It was for a program coming to Belize – and to Ambergris Caye. An organic recycling project – home composting of organic waste. It would include a composter AND (most importantly) instructions and direction about how to do it on an island where the sun is intense, the seasonal rain is all or none, the ground is sand (not soil) and pests that are attracted to dark, food rich areas are aplenty!

And by pests I mean fire ants, scorpions, wish willys (black iguanas) and more fire ants. But I’ll get to those in a bit…

Earlier this week, I got a call from the organization behind the ad (the number calling was from Chile!) There would be a 3:30pm meeting at the Lions Den in downtown San Pedro to educate and then distribute our new composting systems. I did not know what to expect…

I was there right on time – and the room was filling up quickly.

There were large composting containers set up on the sides. These guys mean business! Here’s what I learned.

The folks running this program are Recycle Organics from Chile. The current operation is sponsored by Environment and Climate Change Canada – sponsoring this program around the world from St. Lucia and Belize to Fiji.

The plan is to reduce methane emission from methane gas that comes from organic waste that anaerobically (without oxygen) decomposes in landfills.

I had no idea. I thought composting was just a way to create fertilizer for your plants. I did NOT know that landfills with organic waste (vegs, fruit, yard cuttings) emit tons and tons of methane. And methane gas accounts for about 45% of climate change. And not only that – here on Ambergris Caye, our waste is trucked/carted down to the dump, in plastic trash bags and THEN barged to the mainland, where it is then trucked to the landfill at Mile 24. Where it is compacted into the landfill to turn into methane gas. GOOD GRIEF!

I had tried (half-ass tried) composting in our yard previously. But I found that I was either creating a sanctuary for fire ants – or for maggots/flies. And I didn’t know how to fix it. So I gave up.

Now that I know all this? It’s time to get started FOR REAL. With the help and continued assistance of this group.

Here are some additional things that I learned at this meeting.

• Things we can do on this island to help with climate change: Composting! Minimize cutting of trees!
• About 50% of our household waste is organic (can be composted) wow!
• This equipment is not ours to sell/transfer – it is owned/loaned by this project
• You are agreeing to 1 visit per month by local project coodinator until November (the pressure!) Mr Abner Bacab is our area coordinator (and will be my first call if there is a scorpion in my bin 😉 )
• They are starting this project in 4 locations in Belize: Saturday, they will be in Belmopan and San Ignacio
• They are also looking at sargassum for both bio-gas and fertilizer and looking to work with hotels on larger scale organic waster
• The project includes working at the municipal and country-level as well as household (starting with 60 households)
• Previous finding: it can take up to 10 months for compost to form in cool, dry Chile but in the not humid jungle of Peru, it takes about 45 days

Specific information for composting here:

• For every bucket of “green waste”, you need to add 2 buckets of “brown waste”
• If your compost is too wet, you will get flies – add more brown
• If you compost is too dry, you’ll get ants – add more green and wet a bit
• No worms in compost here – they do not like citrus – and we use alot of citrus in Belize
• Keep composter out of direct sun – if too hot, helpful microbes are killed, also, place it on soil/sand not cement so it can gather up the right microbes and can drain properly
• No cooked food for first 6 months – okay when compost gets going maybe. It attracts animals!

The group is going to have a WhatsApp group to exchange tips and tricks and fails and to send selfies with your heap.

The meeting let out and we were given our kit. A bit awkward to carry but this lovely traffic officer helped me get it to my cart.

As soon as I got over the bridge on my ride north, the whole thing BLEW right off my cart. A HUGE thank you to the folks behind me who gathered everything up for me (and didn’t complain once that I almost killed them!) and to the gentleman at Village Market. He helped me secure everything to my back seat with packing tape.

I love this town! And this cool project. For more information, check out their website. And I’ll let you know how it all goes. Hopefully it is not a fire ant sanctuary because….you know why. Especially if you’ve been bitten by a fire ant. Awful creatures.