Jun 3, 2011 / ENERGY GLOBE Award
Project presentation - "Recycling island"
Micronesia is an idyllic island paradise with a few flaws in its beauty. The islands’ wastes are either deposited at a landfill, exported, or all too often simply dumped into the sea. Plastic bottles, aluminum cans and even auto batteries are disposed in this way. Maria Stephens wanted to do something against her home becoming a garbage dump.
Furthermore, why should raw materials be thrown away? “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today” was her motto as she accepted this challenge and developed a recycling system in cooperation with Micronesia Eco Inc. for the island Kosrae. Now waste is collected and sold as valuable raw material – a win/win situation for the island and its population.
A special recycling option was found for the waste glass: It is ground and added to concrete to make shoreline stabilization structures more robust than with concrete alone. Another advantage for the environment is that the energy for treating the wastes comes exclusively from solar sources.
Maria Stephens, mother of a two-year old, cites the motivation for her work: “I take care of our environment, I take care of the others, so I take care of myself.”