Green Turtle Plastic Rebirth Project
Bath, England, United Kingdom
Aim
Collect plastic waste that affects the breeding grounds of endangered turtles in Cape Verde, giving back to the community by upcycling.
Green Turtle Plastic Rebirth Project aims to collect plastic waste that is washed up on the shore of Porto Ferreira Beach in Boavista Island/Cape Verde, which is one of the main nesting grounds of endangered turtles.
To summarise, we will collect the plastic from the nesting grounds and transform it into something useful to put back into a community, that is going through a very tough economic and social situation. With your help, we will help upcycle the plastic and reuse it with the aid of a machinery developed by the group Precious Plastic to produce basic products and equipment, giving back to the community for free. This will incentivise the community to collect and recycle plastic waste, creating a sustainable system in an island that does not have the capacity to recycle the current plastic crisis.
LOCATION: Cape Verde
BOAVISTA ISLAND
PORTO FERREIRA/ NESTING GROUNDS
The Boavista island is home of one of the most important nesting grounds for 5 species of turtles (out of 7 known worldwide), being the Porto Ferreira beach and Santa Monica beach two of the most important for endangered species of turtles.
Unfortunately after a trip to the island, we faced the devastating effects of plastic pollution.
(Pictures taken in Praia Porto Ferreira - BoaVista by Paulo Frasao in June 2019)
From deceased turtles, to massive piles of plastic, this area is forgotten... only by 4x4's or Quad Bikes this area can be reached due to its remote location.
There are no roads for miles, only desert...
The challenge of removing this huge amount of waste from this nesting grounds will be immense, taking in consideration the conditions we are facing.
We will need to rent 4x4's and Quad Bikes to transport people and gear to location and on return to bring everything back including all wasted collected on everyday.
In order to reduce the volume of the plastic collected, we will set up a mobile station for separation and shredding on location, where we will separate all plastics and waste by genres. Once this is done, it will be shredded into small pieces and packed for transport. This method will allow us to transport big quantities of waste in a more compacted way.
After collection the shredded plastic will be transported to a station in the nearest village where it will be used to produce new objects for the community with the help of a open source system developed by Precious Plastic.
Check them out here:
This method will allow the communities in need to produce everything from everyday items to construction materials such has cutlery, plates, tiles, floor tiles, poles, posts, plastic bricks, souvenirs for tourism, jewelry, etc.
It is our intention to get the community involved to the stage where we can give them workshops on how to use the machines to produce what they need, so when we leave, they are left with the tools to produce items independently.
This method can be particularly efficient if we take in consideration that in order to produce something the subject will need to collect the waste in order to produce something new.
Sponsor and media coverage:
WavesRec Media
WavesRec Media is going to provide coverage of the whole process and provide daily updates to all funders so they can see the progress we are making, from development to implementation. WavesRec will be providing this service for free as part of their social initiative, making them one of our main sponsors!
Financials breakdown
Machinery and Development:
Shredding Machine: 2000.00£
Extrusion Machine: 2400.00£
Injection / Compression Machine: 1800.00£
Mobile Station: 4000.00£
Molds for assorted items: 2000.00£
Staff (to be paid to locals in Cape Verde to work on the project):
Wages: 3000.00£
Food and drinks: 1500.00£
Miscellaneous: 1000.00£
Transports:
4x4 / Quad Bikes: 3000.00£
Organisers Expenses:
Flights: 2000.00£
Accomodation: 2000£
Food: 500£
Other expenses:
Communications: 100£
Freight of Heavy Gear: 1000.00£
What happens if we gather more than the objective:
In the eventuality that we manage to gather more funding, we will automatically research and expand the project to other areas of the island and eventually to other affected islands of Cape Verde. In the eventuality of the funding being abundant, after completion of treatment of all surrounding areas in Cape Verde we will regroup back in the UK and develop the project in other affected areas in the world where our help can be positive.
Your Help matters
Like we said before we are a group of individuals that care about future animal and human generations, so we reached a point where we came to the conclusion that we cannot wait for governments or big corporations to do something about the destructive state of the planet we live in. We decided to take action into our own hands and do something about it, this is our duty, this is our legacy.
We want you to be part of it, we need you to be part of it, and specially we need you to make a fuss out of it. Turtles in Porto Ferreira are having a really hard time to survive extinction and we can do something about it, something real and tangible. It is true that big corporations are responsible for part of this, so we would like them to also be part of the solution. A small contribution from this companies like GALP, Coca Cola, etc is a drop of water in a ocean of profits, lets ask them to be part of this and together we can create something beautiful out of a very sad situation.
Help us make a difference!
This project successfully funded on 12th August 2019