A post from our fearless Andrew Judkins!
This was the second winter that I have
had a chance to advance the mission of Trash for Peace in another
country. This time, my travels took me back to my alma mater, the
United Nations mandated
University for Peace in Costa Rica. I earned
an MA in Sustainable Natural Resource Management in 2009, and I
returned to take a couple more classes. While here, I got involved
with the university’s
Sustainability Club. I led a team comprising
of a couple grad students from this club, and a few people from the
maintenance staff.
The idea with this particular project
was to equip the Sustainability Club with the ability to lead simple,
short-term, and extremely meaningful projects, while at the same time
empowering the maintenance staff with a new skill of building
something useful from waste materials. Additionally, the
collaboration between grad students and maintenance staff builds a
bridge across vast social differences and fosters the kind of peace
identified in our mission and the mission of the university.
To begin, the problem: there are 10
garbage/recycling stations located throughout the campus. Each
station has a garbage bin, and a recycle bin. Although each are
labeled, the maintenance staff consistently finds garbage in the
recycle bin, and recyclables in the garbage bin. The solution:
recycle bins made from wasted materials that clearly transmit a
non-verbal message of what its contents ought to be.
We found some old, beat-up metal desks
that were no longer wanted so the maintenance guys went at them with
cutters and welders, and created a structure similar to the what I
had shown them in pictures.
Unfortunately, my Spanish is
embarrassingly bad, and we had several hangups in the frame’s
production. It wasn’t built with any planning for use - it was just built because I asked them to build it, and finished my question with "Por favor." So, it was too big to hold any of the plastic garbage
bags in stock. They will have to buy another size of bag to fit it so this
bin will only be used in the Peace Park, an adjacent plot of land
that is open to the public, and for special events on campus.
We sorted out bottles, washed them,
drilled holes in them, while the maintenance staff did the welding.
Another language barrier reared its ugly head and we had to redrill
all the holes in the frame they’d made us. I took on that one,
while the the two students stripped off the insulation from some old
internet cables.
We then used the cables to string up the bottles to form a beautiful creation that would be a beacon for collecting recyclable materials.
It’s sturdy and looks great, but we
can’t put them into the existing collection stations so for the next bin, I decided to get all
the measurements and draw up a design that was completely ready before the guys
started debating what my broken Spanish was requesting. This time, we used some leftover wood that had been designated to be used in the construction of the new Earth Charter building. They did a fine job in building it to my exact specifications, leaving it to be wired and bottled.
The new bin fits perfectly into the collection station, it looks great, and it resolves the issue of differentiating
between what goes where! Problem solved!
The next step is to build 9 more of
these bins for the rest of the campus. Easy! The materials may alter
slightly, but the important concept about utilizing waste has been
embraced by all of the participants, and I’m excited to see what they come
up with!
