NMC leads recycling campaign

A collaborative effort spearheaded by the Northern Marianas College CNMI Cooperative Research, Extension, and Education Service (NMC-CNMI CREES), along with the Department of Public Works Waste Management, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources, combine their respective agency’s knowledge, skills, and expertise to increase and promote recycling efforts in the CNMI.

In a cooperative effort to reduce trash and promote recycling, the respective agencies have started their recycling strategies on Saipan by turning old wood and shrubs into mounds of nutritious soil enhancing compost.

Collectively, these agencies have started recycling the old shrubs, wood and lumber that have been sitting at the Puerto Rico Dump for years. Through the cooperative working relationship of these CNMI government agencies, the recycling of these materials is made extremely easy. First, the employees sort out the materials and prepare them for grinding.
They then feed the materials into a chipper shredder and guide the materials through the grinder. The grinder then turns the material into wood chips, which is then loaded onto the back of a truck or stored in containers.

The chips are then place in compost bins and are baked under the heat of the sun. Within a matter of time, the natural sun heat kills off the bacteria on the chips and it transforms into compost which could be used as a soil substitute or as added nutrients to existing topsoil.

The first batch of compost produced from the recycled materials of this pilot project will be used for educational purposes and other projects to be coordinated by other government agencies. These upcoming projects include home container gardening, soil improvement tests, Puerto Rico Dump landscaping project, Puerto Rico Dump erosion control and the promotion of future recycling efforts from other interested sectors of our local community.

Despite the proposed garbage fees that are soon to be imposed, the DPW Waste Management Division will allow shrubs, wood and trees to be dumped for free. All other garbage and materials are subject to DPW regulations.

For more information on composting and the collaborative efforts of this project, please contact Linwood Seaver of the NMC-CNMI CREES at 234-5498, Extension 1706, or visit us at our website at HYPERLINK http://www.crees.org http://www.crees.org.

For Puerto Rico Dump fees and regulations, contact John Harder of the DPW Solid Waste Management Division at 322-9436/9888.