By Jorge Andrade and Antonieta Valenzuela
After four sessions throughout the month of September, the workshop on “Good practices for waste management” ended last September 24, 2016 in La Chorera, in San Quintín.
The workshop was given by two environmental consultants, Adriana Puma and Mark Lupio from Proyectos Ambientales Integrales (an environmental consultancy agency), and focused on providing the participants the tools for identifying the amount and types of waste produced in La Chorera and also to find sustainable options to recover its value.
With the participation of 20 women, some of the topics studied in the workshop were waste sorting, environmental policies, types of composting, biodegradation, preparing vermicompost, among others, it also included team activities to strengthen the analysis and brainstorming.
“Garbage is wasted money,” said Adriana Puma in one of the workshop sessions, she explained that 80% of what we know as garbage may actually have another use, and therefore it should not be considered garbage but waste.
One of the first exercises of the workshop was that the participants had to identify and weigh of the garbage produced per person during a period of time, they had to take into account the tools acquired during the first two sessions.
After each person shared the results of the exercise and made a list of the types of waste, the participants worked together to make an estimate of the waste produced in the entire community of 130 people; at the end, the numbers showed that on average each person in La Chorera produces around 2.6 pounds of waste per day, mostly plastic.
This amount exceeds the average in Baja California of 1.8 pounds of garbage produced per person in a day, according to data from the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (Inegi).
“Now you know how much waste is generated in the community and that it may become an income, there is no need to generate more trash” said Adriana Puma at the end of the group exercise, she added that “Everything you create can have a value, you just need to find out a way to make it happen.”
Because of the importance of engaging communities in activities that promote environmental care, there is the possibility of replicating this workshop in other communities within San Quintín Bay, a place of great importance for conservation.
This project was conducted with the support of Pro Esteros A.C. and it was funded by the Conservation Program for Sustainable Development (Procodes in Spanish) of the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas along with North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA).