October 11, 2010
Hampton, New Hampshire - South America Snow Sessions (SASS) completed its inaugural season of environmental and community projects in the metropolis of San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina with support from a sort of governance including Protect Our Winters, 1 Step, and the One Life crew of professional snowboarders.
Participants included Michelle Parker, Mark Abma, Chanelle Sladics, Kjersi Buaas, and Jamie Anderson as good as musicians Cindy Santini and Marc Beauregard, the Green Guide Networks` Casey Cochran, the Argentine sustainability consultancy Wulcon Energy, and SASS`s own interns, staff, and clients.
The collaboration produced a greenhouse made of recycled plastic bottles for a local school in Bariloche, a biodiesel processor to convert waste vegetable oil into usable biodiesel, and a carbon offset program for SASS clients in the desert Puna region of Argentina through the EcoAndina foundation. South America Snow Sessions hopes that this inaugural season of projects will be the foundation for more solid and various projects in the seasons to come. With the aid of POW and 1 Step, SASS hopes to educate Argentina`s mountain communities about more sustainable practices while developing projects that assist those same communities.
The Group at the Finished Greenhouse
"When I proposed the mind in January of doing these projects, I had no thought how many people we would associate with who were really energized to do this form of work," said Ryan Dunfee, SASS`s Sustainability Manager. "With everyone from environmental organizations to professional skiers and snowboarders to individuals to the Argentines that we ended up connecting with, we had a huge network of people bore to start tackling these environmental and community issues in South America, and these projects would not have been realized in the little time window we had without them." With funding help from 1 Step and POW, people ran around town collecting thousands of used plastic bottles for the greenhouse walls, helped form a figure and a compost bin, and helped put together a biodiesel reactor made only from parts found around Bariloche. The crowd was capable to pass over both the nursery and the biodiesel reactor to the community by the time they left in mid-September.
The greenhouses were apt to Secondary School No. 321 for use in a mentoring program where high school students teach primary school students how to rise and wish for budding trees. The saplings are so used to reforest an orbit about the Cerro Catedral ski resort that burnt down several days ago.
The SASS Biodiesel Reactor
The biodiesel reactor was also transferred to a grouping of local Argentines working on their own biodiesel project. These Argentines will train Bariloche`s only recycling organization, the self funded Asociacin de Recicladores de Bariloche, on how to use the reactor so that they can both recycle another waste product while lowering their fuel costs and environmental impact. Finally, SASS was capable to modernize its own carbon offset program for clients through the EcoAndina foundation of Argentina, which consisted of developing small-scale solar projects in the remote northern desert area of the state known as la Puna.
"We`re thrilled at the number of play that was done in Bariloche this winter - the collaboration amongst everyone involved was astonishing and it all really addressed the needs of the community and the environment"said Chris Steinkamp, POW`s Executive Director.
Martin Wainstein and Mark Abma in Presence of the Recycling Association Truck
"This was the 1st class for everyone involved doing act in Argentina, so more than anything it was an experiment to see what the needs, enthusiasm, and challenges would be like for environmental projects in Bariloche," said Dunfee. "The results were extremely encouraging and now that we experience what we`re doing, I`m excited to extend the range and plate of the projects, both in Argentina and at SASS Global Travel`s other locations. We`ll be running with organizations like Waves for Development, a surf `voluntourism` organization, to distinguish similar opportunities in tropical communities, as good as act with our existing partners to extend our environmental efforts in the snow community."
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