By Haiti's discarded water bags washed up on area beaches, but one woman had a brilliant solution – Yahoo News
From the well-heeled mansions of Palm Beach to the grittier streets of Port-au-Prince, Diane Buhler and Rose Heimann bonded over trash.
Their long-distance acquaintance began in the late fall of 2016 when thousands of clear plastic pouches the size and shape of square drink coasters washed ashore in tony Palm Beach, each with small rips in one corner.
Buhler, who founded the beach cleaning not-for-profit Friends of Palm Beach, thought they were inflatable packing bags used to cushion goods in transit, but the ragged corner tears didn’t make sense.
MORE: Some in Palm Beach County's Haitian community express heartbreak, pray for hope
RELATED: New Haiti constitution would give Florida expatriates equal rights
When one bag finally washed ashore with writing still legible, it was clear they came from Haiti and were once filled with water – 4-to-8-oz. single-use plastic sachets that likely washed into the Caribbean Sea when Hurricane Matthew hit the island in October 2016 as a Category 4 storm.
"I knew the tear wasn't from fish chewing on it," Buhler said. "(People) tear off a little corner with their teeth to drink."
A Google search led Buhler to Heimann, who has been teaching people in Haiti to turn the ubiquitous water bag trash into a sellable commodity, such as tote bags, purses, phone holders, wine bottle carriers, wallets and even checkerboards.
“Littering is pervasive in Haiti,” said Heimann, who started the company PeaceCYCLE with three employees in 2014 and now has 20. “I tell them that they might not see the difference in what they are doing, but their kids and grandkids will see it.”
RELATED: Toilet shortage may lead to disease in Haiti
PHOTOS: Haiti recovers after quake
Heimann, an Indiana native and Purdue University graduate, visited Buhler in West Palm Beach this month.
“For me to find her doing what she does, it was like, 'Oh my gosh, here’s a solution that helps keep the trash from coming to me,'” Buhler said. "It puts people in Haiti in a better place and puts the animals that I protect in a better place."
But turning Haitian trash into treasure is a challenge start to finish. In the beginning, Heimann said people would make fun of her employees who were picking up the water bags, calling them crazy, or “ou fou” in Haitian Creole.
Once collected, the bags are washed and sanitized, plastic is fused together with an iron heated by coal, patterns are traced and cut, and then a product is sewn on a treadle sewing machine using scrap fabric from school uniforms. The colorful result includes a tag that says how many water bags were used (and taken off the street) to produce the item, and how many people PeaceCYCLE was employing at the time.
When her employees were initially ridiculed for their trash collection, Heimann told them to be patient.
“I said, they will be jealous of you one day,” Heimann said. “And now those people want jobs.”
The past year has been even more difficult for PeaceCYCLE with the pandemic and recent presidential assassination making shipping almost impossible, Heimann said. For now, she can only take bulk orders of $1,000 or more and is hoping South Florida shops will want to carry the products.
In the long run, she’d like to set up a sustainable business that can be run by people in Haiti while she handles shipping from the U.S. She’s been living primarily in Port-au-Prince since 2014 after arriving with her "life savings, one suitcase and a Creole dictionary."
“I realized this work was helping people have jobs, so I just surrendered to it,” she said.
One thing Heimann knows is the water bags, which she estimates are bought at a rate of 8 million per day, aren’t going away. Without readily available potable water, reusable bottles aren’t an answer for many people in Haiti, and the water bags are sold cold.
“To buy cold water is really a luxury,” she said.
For more information on PeaceCYCLE, email Heimann at peacecyclellc@gmail.com or go to peacecycle.com.
Kmiller@pbpost.com
@Kmillerweather
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: A solution to water bags that clog Haiti streets, Palm Beach County beaches
Smith, who grew up in Wellington and graduated from Wellington Christian, and his mount Ayade Hero Z turned in a lightning-quick jump-off round.
Gov. Phil Murphy urged New Jersey drivers to stay off the roads during the storm. Along with slick roadways, flooding and power outages are major concerns Monday. CBS2's Natalie Duddridge reports from Teaneck.
SmarFinancial (SMBK) doesn't possess the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely earnings beat in its upcoming report. Get prepared with the key expectations.
After the Marshall Fire forced Avista Adventist Hospital to shut its doors, the hospital will reopen Tuesday. Crews have worked around the clock since the fire, making sure every piece of equipment and supplies were reviewed and cleaned multiple times.
Achievement Centers for Children & Families in Delray Beach and Hopportunities are hosting the first annual Cornhole for the Kids Tournament on Jan. 29
PennDOT provides an update on conditions north of Pittsburgh as the region is blanketed with snow.
The second storm of the month began Sunday night and continues today.
Experienced surfers would consider the waves reaching the West Coast barely high enough to qualify as swells.
You can almost see the wheels turning in Winston's head when he spots those ducks…
2 people have been confirmed dead in the Pacific island nation so far, but communications are still patchy, and the scale of the damage is just starting to become clear.
“Winter weather systems can cause drastic changes in water levels,” the Coast Guard says.
Theodore Watler, 64, became separated from a group of divers who had hired a commercial vessel to take them out to the aging Elly platform Sunday morning.
The fish causes erosion, harasses manatees and can walk on land.
A tsunami hit Tonga on Saturday after an underwater volcano exploded, downing the island nation's communications. At least three people died.
We missed the worst impact of a storm Monday, but forecasters are tracking the next front as the rest of January is expected to be colder than normal.
How can animals cope with such extended bitter cold conditions? Nature is a wonderful provider.
Satellite images published by the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNSOT) on January 17 show the impact of a volcanic eruption near Tonga on the Pacific Island nation and the volcano.The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on January 15, causing disruption to communications to Tonga and producing tsunami warnings in multiple pacific rim nations.The Australian Defence Force and New Zealand’s Air Force sent aircraft to Tonga to assist with damage assessments on January 17.These before and after images analyzed by UNSOT show where potential damage appears to have occurred in communities, and the extent of the blast’s impact on the volcanic island. Credit: UNSOT via Storyful
Videos captured by Tongan geologists show a huge ash cloud rising over the island nation during a powerful volcanic eruption that caused a tsunami in the Pacific.
Some towns in North Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi saw more snow than parts of the Northeast on Sunday, Jan. 16.
A magnitude 3.5 earthquake was reported Monday evening at 11:39 p.m. Pacific time four miles from Palm Springs, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
