Friday, July 19, 2013

Garden and Recycling Projects

Tuesday was dedicated to a couple of the environmental projects, as our General Projects Coordinator spent the entire morning in Llanos de Pinal leading a group of students in weeding and planting new radish seeds.  It was a hot day, and the work was difficult, but after three plus hours, it was good to see the huge difference it made in the garden.  In addition to the radishes, which we planted in two beds and around the sides of the garden, onions, cabbage, and red beets make up the remainder of the vegetables.  These vegetables will be used by the Family Support Center to help off-set the cost of the food budget, one of the higher expenses in all of Pop Wuj’s projects. 
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On Tuesday afternoon, the General Projects Coordinator spent about an hour with two students sorting Pop Wuj’s recyclables, which is now required by the recycling center to which we take our plastic. Apparently, they will no longer pay the normal price for all plastic #1-7, but rather will pay the normal price for #1-5 and less (30 centavos per pound) for #6-7. 

We also walked a few blocks to the nearby recycling center, Don Tito, where we take our aluminum, glass, and tin.  Aluminum is quite valuable here, which is excellent for us, as our Thursday fundraiser for the school’s projects is predicated on drink sales.  As a result, the 8 pounds of aluminum we gave equated to 24 of the total 28 Quetzales (roughly $4 U.S.) we received for the recyclables.  We don’t recycle for the money, but it certainly doesn’t hurt when we come out ahead to help offset some of the costs associated with the environmental projects.

Although our Environmental Program is officially the newest addition to our social projects, in reality it began in 1993 with our Stove Project which slows deforestation by offering a more fuel efficient way to cook food. To support this we began reforestation projects in 2004 in rural communities surrounding Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. To make these efforts more sustainable we built a greenhouse in 2006 in order to grow trees ourselves to replant. However, due to climate and a host of other reasons the greenhouse was used to plant tomatoes and other vegetables for consumption at the Family Support Center.

Through the environmental program we have constructed compost latrines and the greenhouse at our Family Support Center in order to provide healthy food for the children and a source of revenue through selling its products at the market. We have also led projects which allow for water treatment, recycling, and irrigation.

As this is our newest program, it is in the greatest need of funding and volunteers as it hopes to exist on the same level as our other projects.