Recycling is not for the poor, as some may still believe. Recycling is currently a necessity. Doing so means betting on the sustainability, that is, for a world with a future. But not only that, because recycling can also become the lifeline to get out of poverty or, at least, to better cope with it.
A boat soon, I can think of two ways to do it: through public politics or through private initiatives. Unfortunately poverty and recycling policies have few practical examples.
Recycle used soaps
In Haiti, we found an initiative launched by the Anacaona anonymous society, a recycling company for soaps who has devised a way to reduce waste and employ many women who find themselves in a situation of vulnerability.
The idea is very simple: the soaps left by the guests of the country's luxury hotels are recycled, with practically no use. Specifically, there are already 25 hotels that collaborate with this activity. For this, the scraps used are collected for recycling, and in return they receive those that have been recycled.
The process meets the necessary hygienic and sanitary conditions, with which the soaps are disinfected, to be grated and then melted. Finally, ready-to-use soaps are obtained again.
Social housing with recycled bricks
Conceptos Plásticos, a Colombian solidarity company, has created recycled plastic bricks whose shape facilitates their assembly to build houses quickly and economically. Another example of solidarity with those most in need, while caring for the environment.
The cost of a house of about 40 square meters would be around 4,500 euros. An average house needs about 1,300 bricks, the manufacture of which means discharging plastic waste, which is ground, agglutinated, melted and, finally, extruded.
Currently, they are making houses for NGOs or people who can afford them, since they are really cheap. If plastic is collected to help make bricks, it also helps the initiative, lowering the final cost.
Recycle used sneakers
In this case it is more of a reuse than a recycling. The project has been promoted by the European Secondary Institute of Madrid, promotes the solidarity campaign #RUNCYCLE, which with the collaboration of Runnics and other organizations.
It ended yesterday, June 20, and consisted of collecting used sneakers to give them a second life on the feet of young people and children in Mozambique. In addition, the shoes are accompanied by drawings and personalized letters by children who collaborate in such a beautiful initiative.
Although it is inevitable to wish that soon those kids they can buy sneakers with their own money. I know how, many little ones from that country they will be grateful and receive them with as much joy as if they were new.
Objective: recycle water
In this case, the draft it is a desideratum. That is, it has not yet been carried out, but it is claimed as a measure to help people who do not have drinking water in their homes. Juan Javier Carrillo Sosa, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), recalls that one in ten Mexicans does not have access to it.
In many parts of the world, as is well known, drinking water is also an inaccessible luxury for many. A problem of the first order whose solution helps to combat poverty, as the expert emphasizes.
Making water available to everyone, in his opinion, requires recycling. Not all cases are the same, but he proposes to do so given that it is not distributed equitably and the availability irregular depending on the place and time. Above all, alluding to the inequalities that exist in your country with respect to its distribution.
To improve the situation, he proposes to invest in infrastructures that help its recycling, specifically the treatment of wastewater, as well as the capture of rainwater. Doing so would undoubtedly help fight poverty as well as conserve the environment.
Bags from plastic bags
This initiative started in Chamcar Bei, a location from Kep province, on the Cambodian coast, and has now spread to other nearby municipalities as well. The key to success is none other than having obtained a free raw material with which to weave fashion accessories, such as bags.
As if that were not enough, this raw material is also transformed for its use in an eco-friendly way, since it is simply a matter of converting the bags from plastic that are in the streets in balls with which to weave. Of course, the very activity of collecting waste supposes an environmental care of great value. Ultimately, the result is cleaner cities and a job opportunity for people below the poverty line.
Conclusions.
The objective, however, has a rationale that is consistent with trends in European and global politics. Again, the word sustainability is the key, as well as inclusive policies, which help the marginalized population to stop being so.
In short, it would be a way to converge the economic sustainability and environmental doing social justice. A field in which we are still under wraps, but which the signs of the times lead to, in the same way that the Fair Trade formula is making its way.
But these policies are the exception. Recycling and fighting poverty is a binomial with great potential that has not yet begun to take advantage of. At the private level, however, projects do proliferate, as we will see below. In a trickle, it is true, but each initiative is worthy of celebration and, why not, also an example that could spread.
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