G L O B A L B R I E F I N G R E P O RT R E V I E W EROSION CONROL B R A N D E D S T O RY
Stop Erosion, Save Water and Recycle Plastic while Growing Trees with One Solution Dirt Locker ® Hillside Terracing and Erosion Control By Krista Stewart
With beads of sweat running down his face under the hot Southern California sun, Mark Trebilcock struggled with the hard-packed clay soil and uneven slope on his hillside. No matter what he did to grow the fruit trees and plants he wanted, the only thing growing in his yard were weeds and his aggravation. The soil erosion and inability to keep water at the roots were the main culprits. He had tried multiple store-bought products to mitigate the erosion and keep the plants hydrated, but nothing worked until he created a prototype in his garage that he began to test
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out on his yard. His prototype was the first version of the Dirt Locker®, a hillside terracing device that saved water and stopped the persistent erosion. The Dirt Locker® can also reduce agricultural waste, plant mortality, labor for terracing or maintenance, and consumes waste plastics through recycling. When traveling in East Africa Mark saw the need for an agricultural product to help people grow their food in inhospitable terrain. During his trip through Rwanda and Uganda, Mark began to seriously consider the possibility of developing an
international network for the Dirt Locker®, knowing that it could help mitigate problems like plastic pollution, land availability, and unsustainable agriculture. He learned that in Rwandan culture, it is customary for families to subdivide the property to the children, generation after generation, inevitably leading to less land to a farm which creates a food problem when they are not able to grow enough to feed their families. In addition to the overpopulated land, non-farmable slopes, and erosion deteriorating the little remaining land, Rwanda has become dependent
