Advocacy for Recycling Yard 

Objective: Assure the future of municipal recycling that includes handling of recyclables collected on private contract in Loreto Bay Villages 

Activity: Demonstrate the legitimacy of Cesar Diaz’s recycling process to clients and also to the city administration as proof of the recycling yard’s eligibility for a land-use permit.

Contribution planned: Purchase of long-lasting GPS tracker for monitoring the final destination of recyclables; purchase or lease of a forklift; liaison with recycling yard operator Cesar Diaz and Anne Fletcher, the home owner in Loreto Bay Villages who launched its glass recycling program in collaboration with Sr. Diaz.

Plastic Pollution

According to Google Search, the most frequently used keyword phrase in 2018 was “plastic pollution in the sea” or equivalent wording. Plastic pollution is of foremost concern to responsible home owners in the Loreto community. For the last ten years, Loreto has supported recycling in some form of different types of recyclable containers.

However, in the last five years, the global market for recyclables has changed to the disadvantage of rural communities like Loreto. Margins are very tight for businesses created to send recyclable plastics and other potentially recyclable materials to a responsible processing center (that is, actually recycle and not pollute oceans or landfills).

Supporting Our Local Recycling Yard

The Foundation’s work for this year is continuation of our support for a reliable operator, Cesar Diaz, who runs the only local recycling service for cardboard, paper, glass and certain types of plastic bottles. Our work includes providing Cesar with heavy equipment (e.g., a forklift) for baling recycling materials so that vendors in Mexicali can handle them. We have also looked to maximizing our local collector’s revenue: we have reached out, and will continue that outreach, to different vendors who are currently buying plastics for recycling operations within Mexico. 

Eliminating Single Use Plastics

A way to ensure that sorted materials are recycled is to place GPS trackers within them so that they can be seen to have reached their intended destination. Our foundation is dedicated to the ideal of “zero waste” with its practical milestone of thorough recycling, so we joined the state-wide coalition in 2018 that pressed the state to ban single-use plastics in Baja California Sur. It is very fortunate that the Municipality of Loreto has ratified the application of the law in its jurisdiction. Now, the biggest challenge is to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics within the community and prevent plastic from reaching the municipal trash dump of Loreto.   

Events