Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

On Wednesday, December 3rd, we visited Fabricio Valverde Recyling Center, and Ulf Hardtner (from Germany) gave our a tour/lecture of the recyling facility and the challenges of recyling on the Galapagos Islands. Ulf works for the Municipal Government of Santa Cruz. There is an educational awareness building with posters explaining historical and present environmental and health problems associated with waste disposal. He reinterated what we already learned about the removal of waste from the Galapagos Islands: all recyclable material is broken down/compacted and privately-owned ships bring the waste to the main land (Ecuador). Currently the Galapagos Islands are losing money recycling their waste, even though there has been a huge increase in land preservation. This leads to the problem - money talks! Therefore it takes some smooth talking to get the local government officials to keep the recycling program going. There was even a problem with the collectors not picking up the recycling bins. The majority of the people of Santa Cruz thought seperating their waste was time-consuming and basically a pain to do. People who were recycing were complaining that their waste was stinking, and after weeks of the waste randomly being picked up, they began to not sort their trash or they would burn it. Remember this: There is always someone smarter or more clever. The collector said they didn't have any recycling waste to pick up; so Ulf placed GPS devices on the trucks and told the drivers that it was a streat sweeping devise. Over a two month period, he tracked the drivers found out that they were not completing their routes, refusing to pick up the bins as they were told.

Workers continue to separate the trash, as it travels down a conveyor belt, into blue plastic bags. The center shreds the plastic into pellets and grinds the glass into granules. The plastic pellets are sold to China, and the glass is mixed with cement and used to make pavers, or bricks, which are then used for roads in town.