Students Bring Recycling to Their Jalisco Community John Pint - Mexico News Daily
go to original January 10, 2022

Students Xochil Vandroogenbroeck, left, and Xela Lloyd initiated a recyclables collection program in their community in Zapopan (MND)

I live in Pinar de la Venta, a rural community in the municipality of Zapopan, Jalisco, that’s perched on a mountaintop not far from Guadalajara, Jalisco. Not long ago, in our local WhatsApp chat, I began to see notices every two weeks, inviting people to collect and contribute their recyclables.

The posts came from two young women living in my neighborhood named Xela Lloyd and Xochil Vandroogenbroeck, both of them students. I asked them why they had decided to start this project instead of spending all day with their noses in a smartphone, like so many other young moderns.

“It all began,” Lloyd said, “when we would drive through these streets and see what sort of things people were throwing out to be picked up by the trash collectors.”

They both realized that most of what was out there was recyclable.

“We kept seeing people in the [WhatsApp] chat complain that we should be recycling here, but all they did was talk about it,” Vandroogenbroeck said. “They never took the initiative. Finally, we got tired of all that complaining, so we decided to go ahead and do something ourselves. That’s how it all started!”

I asked them how they had arranged for somebody to come far from town to our mile-high community to pick things up twice a month.

“Bueno,” Lloyd said, “in our homes, we used to separate and accumulate our recyclable items like glass, paper and plastics, and then we would take everything to one of several pickup points in Guadalajara. So we called the people who were running that project and asked them if they wouldn’t mind including our community as one of those pickup points, because it is such a long drive from here into the city.”

The young women got the Jalisco project, which is these days called CreSer ConCiencia (Raise Awareness with Science) to agree on a time and place, and they now come by every 15 days.

Every other Sunday, Lloyd and Vandroogenbroeck put a reminder on the chat and go to meet the people bringing things to be recycled.

I thank young people like Lloyd and Vandroogenbroeck, not only for calling my attention to problems I should be thinking more about but also for actually taking a hand in doing something about them.

Read the rest at Mexico News Daily The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, since 1985. His most recent book is Outdoors in Western Mexico, Volume Three. More of his writing can be found on his blog.

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