Establishing a Recycling Centre in Mexico

The recycling project in Mexico is developing into a wonderful initiative. There are a few points around the small fishing village of Punta Allen where people have containers where they separate recycling. Everyday somebody will take  charge of collecting the recycling around town with a tricycle. They also collect organic waste from restaurants and houses around town. In one day, they can collect up to 400kg of organic waste and 20kg of plastic.

We had been using a tricycle which had been donated by the municipality however due to the weight of the daily recycling the tires were damaged. Donations to this project helped us to purchase new tires specially designed to hold up to a ton so they can carry their waste and plastics around easily. As the tricycle now works much more efficiently larger quantities can be managed and staff are not injuring themselves as they struggle with flat tires.

As more and more people are joining the initiative we needed to make more containers to place around town. We bought the material needed and the community worked together to make them. As a result many more families now separate their waste.

As we do not yet have a built structure at the centre we also used some of the metallic wire to create more organized spaces where people can place recycling and made more containers for the compost which is being produced. The wire helps to hold the “compost cakes” in place.

In other news we are thrilled to share we recently entered this project into a competition to receive some government funding and we were successful, this really is amazing news although the funds will not cover the full cost of building a centre so we will be maintaining our fundraising efforts.

Many thanks to everyone who has supported this project.