Chief Stewardess Jennifer “Jane” Brecheteau is making waves aboard M/Y Irisha and beyond. She launched “Girls Going Green” on Instagram (@gggreen_yachts) to create awareness about being more eco-friendly and to then teach crew how to make their own products.
Although she started making her own products in March 2018, it was Emily Penn’s conference topic “How to reduce plastic in the environment” at MYS 2018 that really put things into action. “This conference opened our eyes to different ways we could play a part in caring for our planet that we had not thought of,” she says, pinpointing that moment as the one that prompted her to find more solutions to help other yachts become green.
“As a yacht crewmember, we are always surrounded by nature and can easily see all the trash floating in the middle of any place we go and that is only a little amount of the pollution around us,” says Brecheteau. “As a superyacht, we use a lot of consumable products and I started to think about what we can do to reduce the impact on the environment around us.” Brecheteau offers a few tips, which she lives out with fellow crewmembers.
>Trash: Use different bins to recycle, but instead of consuming and tossing, reuse a lot of the packaging like plastic and glass jars.
> Plastic: She and Chef Charly Valdez try to buy more “responsibly” by reducing the plastic packaging, buying more paper wrapping, or more environmentally friendly products.
> Cleaning Products: Make your own!
To start, she and her team made their own laundry detergent, floor detergent, dishwasher tablets, and surface cleaner. Recently, they created their own toiletries for the crew, which was quite challenging. Their newest endeavor is developing healthy snacks — transportable in reusable packaging — with Chef Valdez. “Our products are based on very simple, non-aggressive base soaps and other chemicals [that] are not dangerous for the environment — or people,” says Brecheteau.
Alhough the crew aboard Irisha is young, Brecheteau says they are responsible and that they naturally apply the three rules of reducing, reusing, and recycling. “I am also very lucky, as Capt. Aaron Udall is supporting us a lot in our goal.” For example, he installed a water filter system on board that dispenses chilled and boiling water, which means no more plastic bottles, more storage space, less time wasted buying, transporting, and storing. Plus, it saves money. “We are lucky that the owners of Irisha are very supportive of this kind of change, as they see it is good for them too,” she says.
Brecheteau acknowledges that superyachts are heavy users of consumables, so any improvement is good. As crew, being more green and responsible “is not only part of our job, but it is part of our lives.”
Pictured above:
Third Stewardess Jessica Gordon of M/Y Hanikon, Chief Stewardess Jennifer Brécheteau, and Second Stewardess Zoë Muscat of M/Y Irisha
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