Ecuador, New project proposal

By Lucie Pecinkova

New project proposal
The project “Pastaza Recicla” has been originally scheduled for 18 months, and it will be finished in December 2018. The project has a great potential of scaling up, and bringing even more positive changes to the Pastaza region, or even to other parts of Ecuador. By a great coincidence and good luck, the European Union office in Ecuador has launched new calls for proposals with a thematic range, that is going hand in hand with our project. Thus, this is just a perfect opportunity to prepare the second phase for our environmental, recycling project in here.

The first phase of Pastaza Recicla has been more focused on the organic part of the waste produced in Pastaza. The idea is to boost the cooperation with local existing farmer communities, who are composting the organic waste into compost. This compost is then used on their own land, to improve the quality of the soil and to support the yield; or it is sold for the same purpose to other farmers. To be able to separate and process the organic part of the municipal waste, it is necessary to apply the system of waste separation at source and also separate waste collection. Thus, the main part of the project in its initial phase was introducing to households the new collection, when they have to present only well separated waste, where each fraction of the waste (organic, non-organic recycling, and mixed waste) is collected different days of the week. Another important part of the project has been to make a financial scan on the waste management system, and propose changes, to make the structure more sustainable.

The second part would prolong the project for another 2.5 years, till July 2021, and it would follow up the activities and effort from the 2018. There would be build a station for secondary segregation of the waste and another big area for compos sorted ting. The station would allow to improve recycling level and clean the waste if it is contaminated and not perfectly at the source. We would also work more closely with the informal workers, who are currently working in the streets of Puyo and also at the landfill site. They collect the material such as cardboard, plastic or metal and sell it for further recycling. Aim of the project is to work with them, and make their working conditions more decent, safe and help them to improve their monthly income.

Submission deadline of the proposal is 24^th September 2018. By December we should have receive the results and know, if our application has been successful or not. All our fingers will be crossed, because truly we believe, the project we are working for has lot of positive impact, and it would be worth to continue in the future!