Volunteer View December 2009
Elizabeth Louisma (LCS Student) and Jon Kennedy (LCS Volunteer) sort through trash collected from the streets to find bottles for recycling.
Bonjou! My name is Jonathan Kennedy. I graduated from the University of Notre Dame last year with a degree in Political Science and Peace Studies. At LCS, I teach English and American Literature to the oldest students (Rheto and Philo) as well as a gym to Katriyem (9th grade). I am also in charge of the plastic recycling program. So, when I’m not teaching, my thoughts generally center on one thing: Tampico bottles.
Tampico is one of the most popular drinks consumed in Haiti. The inexpensive drink is distributed in 16 oz polypropylene bottles. Unfortunately, this results in a country strewn with empty plastic bottles. Every school day for the past nine weeks, we have been collecting this plastic along with aluminum and scrap metal as part of the clean-up program. Scrap metal and aluminum shows up here and there, but the plastic is ubiquitous. Gathering it is not only a source of support for the school, it is an environmental necessity. It is also an investment in the future of Haiti.
Beckoned by the trash filled streets, our recycling army of staff and nearly 100 students has ventured out in force along Route National 3. As we conquer more territory each day, we naturally bring back loot – that is plastic bottles seized from the roadside. These bottles are bouweted (wheel barreled) and bucketed back to the center of operations (by the cistern) where we quickly rinse and wash the bottles before crushing them. Nothing is more beautiful than the sight of a bouwet full of plastic bottles on its way back to LCS to be recycled.
While the plastic has value, it takes massive quantities to make it worth driving to the recycling company. To store the plastic between trips, we created a giant cube by sewing together empty rice bags. The cube itself is an impressive piece of architecture. Imagine a giant bean bag almost 5 feet tall and nearly five feet across filled with plastic bottles. It makes me smile just thinking about it.
Our busy lives here at LCS are full of quickly changing situations and some serious multi-tasking. But recycling is a constant in my daily regimen. It brings a smile to my face every day. LCS teaches us every day that work transforms. Recycling Tampico bottles and cleaning up trash are not only indispensable building blocks for a better future for Haiti—they are my work.
