SEE Turtles helps the sea turtle community
connect, grow, and thrive by supporting community-based conservation efforts. This
project supports our Sea Turtles and Plastic campaign which is designed to get
plastic waste out of sea turtle habitats around the world, by supporting four
(4) local programs in Costa Rica.
The funds raised from this project
will be disbursed equally between the following 4 projects:
Osa Conservation:
The Osa Conservation Sea Turtle program
monitors and protects two important nesting beaches stretching 6.5 km in the
Southern Pacific of Costa Rica. The organization conducts regular beach
cleanups on these beaches and works with the local community to find uses for
this waste. To date, they have provided 10 light guardians made from recycled
plastic to hotels on the Osa Peninsula to reduce light pollution on these beaches
(which can impact nesting) and donate materials to a women’s group to make
recycled jewelry products for sale.
This project will fund, a Precious
Plastic machine which will greatly increase the amount of plastic they can
process, which includes a shredder, extruder, and molds to create new
products.
Tortugas de Osa:
We are working on the next step in the
development of our plastic recycling project, which will enable us to provide a
salary for a local employee, to expand our recycling center, and to host an
educational workshop to familiarize the community with plastics and their threats
to sea turtles and ecosystem health. Overall, our goal is to develop a
community recycling center, where we can remunerate
material drop-offs from local people and hire more employees to manage and process
plastic waste.
This project will fund the cost of two local employees to manage the recycling center, hold 3
educational workshops for local communities, and purchase a sheet making
machine that will allow the organization to create useful items to sell
including chairs, table tops, and other durable products.
Wildlife Conservation Association:
Local recycling pick-up is carried out by
Nosara Recycles, a community-based initiative funded by small private
donations. The organization currently employs two local people and is
struggling to keep afloat. The Seventh Wave is another organization that is
making and selling art and pottery items using concrete and recycled beach
plastic. By collaborating with these and other existing initiatives, we will
create new sources of income for organizations, supporting their long-term
operation and the creation of more jobs. By giving a percentage of sales to the
Ostional National Wildlife Refuge, we will further support sea turtle
conservation by providing additional resources to carry out and enforce
conservation in the area.
This project will fund the purchase of a plastic shredder and extruder, which will allow the organization
to recycle products on site instead of sending them to the city at high costs
to the organization. These machines will be used to create new products that
will be sold to support the organization’s turtle conservation programs.
Centro de Rescate de Especies Marinas
Amenazadas (CREMA):
Since 2019 CREMA has had a collaboration
with a community initiative led by Aníbal Cortés García, a community leader
that is responsible for collecting, classifying, and sending waste to
collection centers from 14 coastal communities. In this way we have managed to
carry out more than 100 beach cleanups, collecting and transporting to
collection centers more than 7 tons of waste.
This project will fund organized beach cleanups with 20 volunteers each, collecting an
estimated 1,000 kilos of plastic waste and transporting it to be recycled.
Funds will cover volunteer costs including transportation and two meals during
the cleanup day, along with equipment, transport rental, and fuel.