Establishing a Recycling Centre in Mexico

We would like to share the most recent trustee report from the GVI Charitable Trust. This report covers the six month period from July to December 2011.

This has been by far the most successful period. In six months we have raised nearly as much as we did the whole previous year. This increase in funding has brought a corresponding increase in the impact we have been able to create on our programs around the world.

During this period we have invested in sustainable education across Latin America. This includes support for the elderly in Guatemala and income generation schemes to support education in Honduras and Ecuador. In Mexico we have worked with a community to establish a recycling centre and in Kenya our partners in Mombasa will now see impoverished students complete primary education to earn qualifications for the first time.

These are just a few highlights of an amazing, productive and rewarding six months. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and played a crucial role in these achievements.

• GVI Charitable Trust Annual Report (PDF)
  

We are very excited to share that construction at the recycling centre has now started.

During the recent lobster festival celebration, we had a busy day in the recycling centre. After Tropical storm Rina, a lot of the plastic was blown away (as it does not have a proper storage place), so we joined forces to tidy up the plastic and things were shifted around as the construction will start soon and we need to make space for all the building materials.

Also, 10 new containers were built to place around town as more people wish to join the programme.

The construction is starting this weekend, after discussion with the community we have decided to build the centre with plastic bottles!! Yes, with all the plastic and glass bottles that have been collected in town! People in town will come in groups to help the centre, and hopefully in a few weeks it will be finished!

We are still focused on raising funds to finish building the recycling centre. Thank you to everyone who has supported this project so far or will moving forward.

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.

After one year of hard work the recycling project continues! The recycling centre is taken care of by Doña Isabel and her family, she has been working really hard to continue collecting the plastics and organic waste from town. The people in town continue to separate their waste and put it in the containers around town.

To mark the one year anniversary we held a two day celebration where we organized different activities like beach cleans, talks about the environment, handcraft workshops, documentaries, games and a food market. We started with a town and beach clean where we collected over 3 tons of rubbish!!! Children from kindergarten, primary and secondary school participated along with their teachers and parents in this great work. We also worked on the recycling centre, more containers were built, a new ramp was built, and a lot of plastic was crushed.

To teach people how to reuse the rubbish we had a craft workshop where the kids made some really nice photo frames and some paper mache fish.

To complement the activities we invited other organizations like our local partners Amigos de Sian Ka'an, who gave a talk on the health of the planet and the human health; and CESIAK (Sian Ka'an Ecological centre) to talk about the different kinds of mangroves and their importance, as well as leading the craft workshop.

The event was a huge success and everybody in Punta Allen is willing to continue working towards the construction of their recycling centre.

Our local Partners, Punta Allen Verde have made a brilliant short video to encourage recycling in the local area. The video uses humour to help people relate but also successfully illustrates how easy it is for everyone to contribute.

Watch this great video here.