Recycling Project - The Start

I had two weeks between my trip to Nicaragua and home to work on my recycling project full steam.  I had nearly every weekday booked with workshops for students, faculty or community.  My goal is to have a workshop with all of the students and, then the community in each of the four towns we're working with.  The motivation of each school board I've worked with has varied and their persistence thereafter as well.  After numerous cancellations and reschedules I have finally finished the workshops in three towns.  However, I find much need to continue holding them in different forms to increase knowledge and continue motivating more people.

I heard from someone that one of the towns was starting a program and they had no idea I was involved with it which is exciting for me because it means people are talking about it.  One of the environmental groups I've spoken with told me that if this project doesn't work this generation will be disappointed to the point to not try it again so I really need to make it work.

Working with the students was exhausting, working from 7 am- 4:30 with them.  By the end I had recycling coming out of my ears.  It's incredible that they knew so little about recycling and now I value Miami-Dade County Public Schools even more, at least for the education I received.  Some classes were more enthusiastic than others.  Those I've worked with got a little out of hand at times since they can finally speak the language we were working with.  But in the end, they've been the gateway to getting the word throughout the communities.  Yesterday, I heard a little girl who only a few weeks ago was throwing trash in the streets say, "Mommy, that's plastic don't throw it away."  It reminded me of how everything we volunteers do does have an affect although at times it really seems to be a slow one.

The community workshops have been awkward... I don't want to treat the adults like children but in most cases they only have a 6th grade education which in most cases included 3-4 hours school days.  Although, the more educated attendees seem very bored at the beginning they've come out very motivated once they got a chance to really take over conversation.

The basics of the project are as follows: a recycling center in Aserri agreed to send a truck to pick up our recyclable materials once we have 1,000 kilograms worth.  Mind you that is one TON of plastic, aluminum, white paper, colored paper, newspaper, carton, glass bottles, and tetrabrik (a common milk/juice carton material here in Costa Rica that is extremely harmful if buried or burned). So I decided to work with the only institutions strong enough in my neighboring towns that could really reach out to entire communities.  The schools.  I went to all of the school board meetings and they agreed to be their town's recycling center.  The part that I hope really makes this a sustainable project is that once we can call the truck to pick up the materials, they will buy the materials from the schools providing them with a small extra income.

The idea is that the community members can drop off their materials twice a week at the schools and the sixth graders will organize them Fridays to go into storage.  One school started collecting a couple days before I went home.  We collected a good bit from just fifteen or so families.  And although I hadn't thought of it, the school's director had invited me to help them on that day.  The women dropping stuff off and staying to help organize had so many questions that I hadn't considered to adress.  It was a great learning process for all of us.

 
The schools have had "winter" vacation these first two weeks of July.  We have a lot of work to do to really get this project off the ground once classes start again and I'll be sure to update more once we do. But I'll leave you with our main recycling reminder, "limpio, aplastado, y separado!" For the gringos that's, "clean, compact, and separated!"