Tijuana Woman Invents Recycling Machine to Improve Scavengers' Lives
- added June 13, 2008
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Think recycling is a good idea? Think of it how good Europe, the US and other countries/continents have had it, when within miles of the US border, most people have never been exposed to a recycling system or culture ever in their lives, and it all goes to one place: the landfill. Until now.
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One step at a time.
TIJUANA, BC MEX. In Tijuana, a new machine is poised to help clean up some of the city’s social and environmental problems. A Tijuana teenager dreamed up the contraption ten years ago. She’s since dedicated her life to making the project a reality. KPBS Border Reporter Amy Isackson has the story.
As a teenager, growing up in Tijuana, Miroslava Enciso Limon always wanted to be a firefighter. But her dream changed when her high school teacher assigned her to visit Tijuana’s dump.City officials eventually hope to recycle 60-percent of Tijuana’s trash.
City dump trucks back up to Enciso’s recycling machine. It’s up and running at a facility on Tijuana’s east side. The machine is not especially high tech.
Blades rip open the garbage bags and spill the contents onto a conveyor belt. At times, the stench makes your eyes water.
About thirty workers dressed in navy coveralls, face masks and latex gloves sort the trash. All of them used to be scavengers at the dump. New employee, Luisa Marquez says it was much harder when she was a scavenger.
Marquez (translated): Before, I left at 4 a.m, before the sun came up because it’d get too hot….We’d have to open the bags. We’d get dirty. We’d get covered in food. We didn’t have uniforms. We didn’t have protection or a roof.
The machine’s inventor, Enciso, says she could have automated the process more. But the idea is to employ as many scavengers from the dump as possible -- about 200 when the machine is fully operational.
City officials eventually hope to recycle 60-percent of Tijuana’s trash.
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One step at a time.
TIJUANA, BC MEX. In Tijuana, a new machine is poised to help clean up some of the city’s social and environmental problems. A Tijuana teenager dreamed up the contraption ten years ago. She’s since dedicated her life to making the project a reality. KPBS Border Reporter Amy Isackson has the story.
As a teenager, growing up in Tijuana, Miroslava Enciso Limon always wanted to be a firefighter. But her dream changed when her high school teacher assigned her to visit Tijuana’s dump.City officials eventually hope to recycle 60-percent of Tijuana’s trash.
City dump trucks back up to Enciso’s recycling machine. It’s up and running at a facility on Tijuana’s east side. The machine is not especially high tech.
Blades rip open the garbage bags and spill the contents onto a conveyor belt. At times, the stench makes your eyes water.
About thirty workers dressed in navy coveralls, face masks and latex gloves sort the trash. All of them used to be scavengers at the dump. New employee, Luisa Marquez says it was much harder when she was a scavenger.
Marquez (translated): Before, I left at 4 a.m, before the sun came up because it’d get too hot….We’d have to open the bags. We’d get dirty. We’d get covered in food. We didn’t have uniforms. We didn’t have protection or a roof.
The machine’s inventor, Enciso, says she could have automated the process more. But the idea is to employ as many scavengers from the dump as possible -- about 200 when the machine is fully operational.
City officials eventually hope to recycle 60-percent of Tijuana’s trash.
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