AFP, published Monday 02 January 2023 at 21:03
In the poorest communities on the outskirts of Santiago, trucks have been collecting residents’ bio-waste for many years: the city of La Pintana is an example of recycling in Chile, the country with the largest volume of waste the region recycles but only a tiny fraction of it and beyond.
Thrown in trash cans, boxes or even plastic bags and then hung on doors or trees, the skins of potatoes, avocados, oranges or other fruits or vegetables have been collected every day for the past 17 years.
Organic waste accounts for half of all the waste produced by each family in this city of nearly 190,000 people, just over 15% of whom live in poverty, the highest rate in the Chilean capital and its suburbs.
La Pintana, one of the first municipalities in Santiago to organize such a collection, also has a municipal garden center built on an old garbage dump. The latter supplies 100,000 plants in 400 different species every year, which are then used to green the city.
“It’s very important to me that the city took this environmental management initiative and motivated residents to get this right,” said Escarlett Isler, a city collection worker, from the step at the back of the loaded dump truck is attached.
“People have changed, they now take care of recycling and no longer throw vegetables in the ‘normal garbage’,” assures José Vera, owner of a small greengrocer’s shop, after taking two large boxes full of organic waste into the street.
The municipal program has succeeded in creating a culture of recycling in a country that, according to the Ministry of the Environment, produces an average of 1.13 kg of waste per person per day and only recycles 0.8% of this.
Once the collection is complete, the dump trucks return to the headquarters of the Directorate General for the Environment (DIGA) to deliver their load. After summary sorting in the bin, the waste is dumped into wheelbarrows and then transported to a composting area, which is carried out with earthworms.
“This work gives us wealth, it gives us joy. Gardens make the city better,” enthuses Jeannette Gonzalez, a municipal worker who plants an alleyway near a municipal sports building.
– virtuous circle –
Chile is the South American country that produces the most waste according to the World Bank, while in terms of recycling it is well below the Latin American average of 4% according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
Thanks to this project, the community of La Pintana recycles about 20 tons of organic waste per day, saving about $100,000 per year, which it then reinvests in the community.
“When we took over this administration, it was a community where there was a landfill every 200 meters. Today we don’t see that anymore,” Mayor Claudia Pizarro, whose city has received several international awards for this program, tells AFP.
“It’s a virtuous cycle: people see that where there was a landfill, there’s green and everything is blooming, and stop dumping there,” he adds.
But not only organic waste benefits from a second chance in La Pintana: more than half of the fifteen employees of the municipal garden center are inmates who have exchanged the prison for community service.
“Everything that is produced here also benefits them, because they are children of the city. It gives them a sense of belonging,” emphasizes Cintia Ortiz, manager of the structure for almost seven years.
Chilean Environment Minister Maisa Rojas recently announced a bill to replicate the Pintana example in the rest of the country.