Nicola Peel - Environmentalist, Inspirational Speaker and Solutionist

Inspirational Speaker & Solutionist

My job is to inspire others to make a difference in the world.

I push us all to question everything and to remember where there is a problem there is always a solution.

I have been working for most of my adult life on addressing environmental problems and finding solutions. I have been blessed with common sense which I have realised is not common so therefore wish to lead by example and teach that which I have learnt.

Since 2000 I have been working in the Ecuadorean Amazon. My journey included travelling from the headwaters in Ecuador down the Amazon River to Brazil researching the effects of the oil industry on the environment and indigenous people who live there.

These discoveries led me to share my insights in a number of short films as well as the feature documentary ‘Blood of the Amazon’. Producing a film was not enough, driven to find ways to help deal with the contamination left from the oil industry I co-founded The Amazon Mycorenewal Project, bringing together a group of scientists to research mycoremediation (the use of fungi to clean up contaminated sites).I also produced a documentay Solution to the Pollution on our work.

Looking for an immediate solution to help the people I started to build simple rainwater systems for families drinking contaminated water. Over the years I have built hundreds of families water systems and made it so that they can easily replicate and fix them themselves.

My concern about plastic rubbish led me to the discovery of Ecobricks (empty plastic bottles filled with rubbish). I have initiated the clean up of villages turning their rubbish into something useful.

I built the first ecological restaurant in the Amazon (built from 3,200 eco-bricks) and the first place to serve local coffee. Working with the local councils in the Amazon I have provided them with environmental consultancy regarding how they deal with their waste.

After visiting the Pacific coast of Colombia and seeing the vast amount of beach rubbish it was apparent another bigger solution was required.

My focus has now moved on from eco-bricks to promoting the use of the open sourced machinery which can chip plastic and melt it down into a new saleable products. This then turns rubbish into a resource, trash into treasure and brings an environmental, social and economical solution.

For more information on the machines see Precious Plastic

With the charity Rainforest Saver I have also been assisting with an agroforestry project to help prevent the slash and burn of tropical rain forests. In our first year we grew 4000 trees and trained 400 farmers. There are now 65 demonstration farms.