Recycling in the DR?

[mountainfrog]

Originally Posted by Chris

... Every little village has a place where they burn their garbage....

Good suggestion, indeed.
Normally they have dozens (depending on the size of the village...) and in some places every household has its 'plant' of its own.
Incorrigible?

m'frog

[Keith R]

Originally Posted by Chris

mountainfrog, you're incorrigable (sp).

There is a fair amount of 'burning on the backroads' of everything. Every little village has a place where they burn their garbage. These are not plants, these are just spots to burn stuff.

As a matter of fact, we did a Green Team blog piece ("Smoke Signals") on this very issue the past spring. Read it at this link.

[Maggie6872]

Does anyone know if they do actually recycle around sosua/cab?

I was at the Playero recently at their 'back' warehouse and the Pepsi guy was there. He took back a number of bottles (counted them even), but when I started asking questions, all I got was a "no se, no se" from the three guys standing around, looking at me like I was crazy. If I hadn't been waiting for something for 30 minutes already and just shown a glimmer of hope by the manager of the warehouse, I would have chased the Pepsi truck down to ask him.....

Plastic, paper, glass, organic, I'll recycle, just show me where!

anyone??

[cbelle]

Originally Posted by GringoCArlos

There is ONE incinerating plant in the DR that does things properly. Just one. Somewhere on the outskirts of Santo domingo on Carretera Duarte, but they pick up too. (but no, I can't recall their name right now or find their card) .

In September, I went to the new guy. I would have to pay one guy to ride along for the burn. $200. No other requirements. MSDS's for the incinerator guy, nothing more. Plus more than $90,000 for the 12 drums to do the burn the "right" way. How easy can it get? And I can sleep at night knowing it had been done as it should have been done.

Hello Gringo Carlos and DR1

I am doing research and writing a thesis on recycling and waste management in the Dominican Republic. Is there any way you could find the name of the company or the address so I can do further investigations on the company and recycling.

SO is the consensus that there is no recycling system in the Dominican Republic besides the man who pick up the bottles from the trash? Any information and insight would be extremely helpful

thanks
cbelle

[Chirimoya]

cbelle, for one recycling initiative that has been going for some time in the DR you could contact the Punta Cana Ecological Foundation.
PUNTACANA Ecological Foundation

Recycling started with the PC airport and hotel waste and was recently extended to the school and residential areas.

We are segregating our household waste into (a) organic, paper, (b) PET, cardboard, glass and (c) non-recyclables. We have three bins to deposit it in. So far I'm not sure that many people are taking part, so the ecological foundation people need to do some follow-up/outreach work to get everyone motivated.

In our case it was preaching to the converted as one of the reasons we chose to live here in Punta Cana was the chance to live a "greener" lifestyle.

[minerva_feliz]

I don't know if your thesis is strictly about recycling, as in collecting items to be reprocessed. Would you be looking into the other two "r's", reuse and reduce? And what about just straight-up waste management? Rural or urban?

If so, I think you should really consider the informal and formal ways that people reuse things, or extend their life by giving them other purposes or fixing to make them last the longest possible. In other countries, when a an item breaks (like a shoe, fan, plastic chair, backpack, etc.), it gets tossed because it's "easier" or preferred to replace it. With the economic situation here and the higher cost of imported goods, people would rather pay 20 pesos to get the heel on their shoe repaired or sew the leg back onto the chair with metal wire. Paint can = flowerpot. Even if these things get tossed, they get scavenged by people who fix them to reuse themselves or sell.

There are people dedicated to scavenging things like scrap metal, big plastic jugs, and anything else that could be reused out of the trash in front of homes, businesses and the dumps. Very little with any life left in it gets tossed. I think dumpster diving in the U.S. is great, but here you won't be finding any treasures, that's for sure. I also think freecycle.org is awesome, but look and you won't find much activity in this country.

Some people make recycling their small business, and have flatbed trucks and drive around announcing that they will buy old radiators, metal scraps, batteries, fridges, motorcycle parts, etc. that people have rusting away in the yard. There are also guys that walk around with megaphones announcing they buy pieces of used gold from broken jewelry or whatever, and they then go and sell it to be made into something else. Places even exist that buy OLD mattresses, no matter how nasty, and use the springs/wood but put new fabric and padding on them to re-sell.

So, in my opinion, in a developing country such as the DR where many institutions have trouble functioning, something like large-scale recycling that requires a certain level of structure and organization is not common or an easy sell...unless it has clear and immediate economic benefits. I am talking about national, provincial and municipal institutions. In this situation, look to the role of smaller-scale reducing, reusing and recycling being done by individuals motivated by economic gain and necessity rather than pure goodwill toward the environment.

[Chirimoya]

That reminds me - there's a vast metal recycling sector, much of it stolen from public and private buildings and installations - one of the DR's main exports is copper but the country doesn't actually have copper mines.

[paolaeli]

there is no recycling system here in dominican republic. the locals that collect the bottles they get paid and some use the money to sustain their families or drugs. but the famous invernaderos ( the garbage pile you see they burn) is very contaminating. have you heard of "rafey" the smoke is dense there the people in that village often protest about it and get sick over it. so many thing you see in those garbage waste. a lot of kids go there to collect items of use especially Haitians kids living illegal here in the country.
it really sad to se this but this government does not care at all if it doesn't get any benefits for it then is not important

[dv8]

all DR companies producing alcohol have their recycling plants. they buy their own bottles off big sellers who get them from those dudes scavenging garbage. damaged bottles are crushed and sold to a company in SD that recycles glass. good bottles are washed and re-used. caps and lids are also recycled.

[cbelle]

thanks everyone I am going to look further into the punta cana group as well as making changes on the local level versus the national level because of all the corruption with in the institutions in the country. Also talking to alcohol companies might be a good start.

I am really excited about this research and hope that my findings can make a difference in Dominican Republic because there is too much contamination in such a beautiful country.