Una ‘Victoria’ en manejo de residuos sólidos

20|04|2016

La Victoria de San Isidro, a rural district of La Jagua de Ibirico, in Cesar, which has 3,000 inhabitants –many of them engaged in agricultural and livestock activities–, produces about 800 kilos of daily waste, which were previously either burned or thrown away to public places and nearby bodies of water.

For many years this population faced the mismanagement of these wastes, a problem that is not unknown to small or large cities in the world. The solution, after months of study and under the boost of various sectors, arrived in March 2016 with the Prodeco Group, the third coal producer in the country and with presence in the mining corridor of Cesar, which, together with the Mayor's Office of La Jagua de Ibirico and the MIMA and Compartamos con Colombia foundations, both

with extensive experience in environmental projects, were in charge of providing a theoretical and practical accompaniment, with extensive training, on the one hand, and workshops and technical assistance on the other hand, in a community willing to change for the benefit of all their families.

There are two important focus points for this environmental solution: the construction of an agro- ecological park in the same town and the implementation of an urban biotransformation program, which aims to improve the food security index of the population by installing vegetable gardens in the homes of 50 families, who will be able to harvest, consume and sell them and obtain economic resources.

HOW DOES THE PROJECT WORK? Under the figure of a cooperative model of work, the households of strata 0 and 1 –where the environmental initiative is targeted– receive weekly the visit of a local company, composed of workers of the same community, responsible for collecting the solid waste of households, on board vehicles donated by the Prodeco Group. After being collected, the waste is disposed in the agro-ecological park La Victoria Recycles, and there they are treated depending on their type: if inorganic, they undergo a process of recycling and exploitation; if organic, they are recovered and transformed into fertilizer material, efficient for the environment, through a process of vermiculture. This waste recovery process is also carried out by the La Victoria Recycles foundation, created to give sustainability to the system.

“This generates jobs, opportunities and the desire to thrive. We were expecting a lot of this project, and things are falling into place,” says Blanca Becerra, chairperson of the community action board of La Victoria de San Isidro. And precisely, the support and affiliation of leaders within the community is of paramount importance: this environmental project is sustained by the income that families receive from the sale of organic fertilizer, as well as the weekly contributions that beneficiaries must make in their homes and shops for the collection of their waste.

"In our policy, the mitigation and control of our impacts is paramount. Here the commitment of all is what matters most, because even if one day the companies that started this project leave, it is the community that must be sustainable,” says Nicolás Gómez Olarte, Sustainability Manager of the Prodeco Group, company that contributed the capital for this investment and that contracted the MIMA foundation as an operator.

PARTNERS. The Mayor of La Jagua de Ibirico has been an important ally for private enterprises and the community, given her commitment and willingness to provide quality of life for a vulnerable population. “It is a pride for Cesar that here in La Victoria de San Isidro is where we will develop this program that aims at the well-being of its inhabitants. We want to replicate this project in La Jagua de Ibirico, Palmitas and Boquerón. We want La Victoria clean,” says Yarcely Rangel, Mayor of the municipality.

A year later we have a clean and sustainable Victoria. The results have been satisfactory and the population has seen its role is very important to show a kinder side of the town. The bet of this type of projects is precisely that high degree of loyalty that each inhabitant assumes with respect to the use of the waste, by empowering themselves in finding the solution to the problem. La Victoria wants to continue being a reflection of the good, the progress and the positive change in Cesar.