Few communities in Paraguay have garbage collection service
and Arazape is no exception. Here trash is either buried, burned, or just left
in piles. Community members identified trash in the streets as a concern,
according to the survey we conducted when we moved to Arazape. A seventh grade
teacher asked me to help her teach lessons to raise awareness about trash and
to help educate students about recycling and re-purposing. It has been a lot of fun working with these kids and helping them to connect with the needs of their community.
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| Decomposition time lines in groups |
Topics we have covered so far have included: separating inorganics from
organics and creating compost; separating inorganics and recovering recyclable
materials; creating a decomposition timeline; and creative uses for re-purposed
items.
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| How long does that take to decompose?! |
Each lesson has been followed by a project where we
re-purpose trash to create a useful item. So far, students have created: wallets
from milk cartons; bracelets from plastic bags; baskets from plastic soda
bottles, and planters from cutting glass bottles.
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| Baskets from plastic bottles |
All of these items will
be on display at the end of the school-year celebration, which will raise the awareness
of other students and community members, as well. Next step will be to work
with the school to start a recycling pilot program, with kids taking the lead
in teaching other kids and talking to the intendente of the municipalidad about a way to
transport the materials to the recycling collection facility, which is an hour away.
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| Mark holding the bottle as a student cuts it with wire and friction |
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| The finished product- Que lindo! |
If the recycling
project works within the school, our next step will be to branch out into the
community. Ideally, we will be working with the teacher to support kids as they
take this on as a class project within their community.
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| Making adjustable bracelets from plastic bags |
So, this is this kind
of trash talk that’s been going on here in our community. Hopefully the stars
align and the project comes to fruition- development work takes a lot of time
and finger crossing!
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| My English class students show off their glass cutting skills! |
