Please help us support NP Waterkeeper in the important work that they are doing!
Nicoya Peninsula Waterkeeper® is a non-profit organization from the community, for the community, located in Santa Teresa, a small and highly touristic surf town on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast. Over the past decade, the beautiful beach and laid-back lifestyle have attracted an increasing number of tourists from all over the world. This trend has accelerated since the start of the 2020 pandemic, as working remotely became more popular. Lack of basic infrastructure, reduced law enforcement capacities, low levels of education, and environmental awareness make it difficult to hold this growth while keeping pollution levels under control. There is no government-led water treatment facility, leaving water treatment in the hands of households and businesses. The municipal waste collection and disposal system is not efficient. With inadequate systems, an increasing number of tourists means increasing amounts of poorly treated wastewater and solid waste polluting the water.
Nicoya Peninsula Waterkeeper® works together with the local community to reduce water pollution deriving from human activities by providing solutions for the community to adopt. We aim to orient the town’s development and urbanization by building the foundations of a sustainable and regenerative town. To do this, we have implemented several projects that have lasting impact and help transform the relationship between humans and the natural resources that host us.
In 2019, in alliance with Bionic®, an engineering company that transforms plastics into durable materials, we managed to create a new recycling culture in town by building and running a recycling center with weekly collection routes. In 2023, we collected 264 tons of recyclable materials. Also, our efforts regarding improving organic waste management in 2022 have prevented almost 707 tons of organic waste from ending up in a landfill.
With the financial contribution of a group of community members, we launched The Beach Cleanup by NP Waterkeeper® project in 2023, aiming to reduce the amount of marine litter on the beaches of the area through weekly clean-ups, while also ensuring proper disposal of each type of collected material. Through the technology developed by the CRDC and adopted by the construction company Pedregal, the deteriorated plastic our team collects from the beach is incorporated into RESIN8 - synthetic sand made with 80% tragic plastic - used to manufacture blocks and tiles for construction. As of October 2024, 16 tons of tragic plastic have been collected from the beach and repurposed thanks to this project!
We base our activities on data and evidence, that is why we do monthly water quality monitoring of the area’s rivers, as well as biannual ocean water monitoring. Even if this gives us good enough trend indications, we urgently need support to consolidate our water quality monitoring capacity to make it more accurate so we can have a better notion on how to offer solutions to redress wastewater pollution. New water testing equipment will allow us to test for fecal contamination WEEKLY for the most populated surfing points! The results will be shared and available for free to all, locals and visitors, through the SwimGuide App to inform safe beach going year-round. The results of this more consistent testing will not only be useful for swimmers/surfers to know if the water is clean, but will also help to raise awareness amongst the local businesses and residents encouraging them to take action and improve their water treatment systems to reduce their impact on water and to advocate for solutions before the relevant authorities.
General knowledge regarding wastewater treatment systems and practices is very low. We have created a Wastewater Treatment Guide for businesses and households to understand each of the steps in the treatment process, including systems‘ design, proper functioning and maintenance, as well as a list of contacts with providers of products and services to improve their current systems. We have created an alliance with Eco Soluciones in Cartago that comes every three weeks to collect grease from grease traps from businesses and transforms it into compost. In 2023 alone, 19.4 tons of grease were processed appropriately instead of ending up polluting the water and affecting the proper functioning of treatment systems.
Furthermore, through consultancies, we support businesses and households who are looking to transform their practices and implement solutions that reduce water pollution. Our main goal is to create and strengthen solutions preventing water pollution, we do this through critical and creative thinking and teamwork. We believe in creating strong alliances locally and internationally so that the network of aware individuals becomes bigger and stronger, creating a space of shared experiences that sets an example. In order to achieve our goal of clean water in this small piece of paradise, we need your support. Please consider donating to Nicoya Peninsula Waterkeeper®!
For more information, you can check our NP Waterkeeper 2023 annual report and visit their website.
All donations to the NP Waterkeeper Fund are tax-deductible in the U.S. and you get a receipt immediately upon donating.
If you have any questions or are interested in donating via other methods (wire transfer, securities, crypto), feel free to reach out to us at info@nicoyapeninsulafoundation.org.