Starting a recycling program from scratch is an impressive feat by almost anyone’s standards. However, when you consider starting a program in a country where people who recycle are still considered a bit eccentric and all recyclables must travel five days by boat before arriving at their destination, you end up with a recycling program that defies all organizational logic. It is also a perfect description for the program Bill Penhollow and Rustyn Mesdag have created.
What started as a personal vendetta by Bill against the trash that backpackers generated in their Puerto Natales hostel and from trips to nearby Torres del Paine National Park, has turned into a full blown recycling program. While initially sporadic, with bags of recyclables sent north to Puerto Montt (Chile) on any ship with space, regular shipments are now being sent to a recycling center in Puerto Montt.
Perhaps fittingly, it is the backpackers that have made the recycling program possible. The large number of gas canisters brought into Torres del Paine National Park by the more than 120,000 backpackers every summer, are the reason they have a recycling program. Bill and Rustyn have been able to turn the empty canisters that return – ones that used to find their way into the trash -- into funding and support from Patagonia Grants, Mountain Safety Research, Outdoor Research, Leave No Trace, 1% Percent for the Planet, The American Alpine Club, and even the municipal government of Puerto Natales. The funding and support not only ensures the canisters are not left as trash in the park, but also makes a small recycling program for the city of Puerto Natales possible. One, that at this point, only works because Bill and Rustyn are willing to not only organize and track down funding, but also go out and collect the recyclables from hostels, restaurants, and the few individuals who “get” what they’re trying to do.
We were lucky enough to sit down and talk with Bill and Rustyn as the program prepares to start its first season of regular shipments. What follows is a candid look into how they’ve gotten the program off the ground and some of the obstacles they’ve faced along the way.
Ben and Devon West: What was the motivation behind starting the program?
Bill Penhollow: For me I think it was a sense of responsibility for the fact that we are making our living from having people come to the area and go to the park, and enjoy the outdoors. Because of that we saw a need to take care of their side of the garbage and recycling and all of that. We saw our weekly garbage bags just full of liter bottles of beer and wine and nothing to do about it. So that was our motivation. We had clients that were willing to do it and working with a group of people that are willing to help you along makes it even easier. We just had to be the middle man, to be the ones who figured out a way and place to send everything. That was the hardest part, finding a place to send it.
Rustyn Mesdag: Yeah, we can be a recycle center and promote it, but unless it’s getting recycled the whole thing is kind of pointless. And so for years we would collect, just everything we could, as much as we had space for, and then just search constantly for someone that could take any of it. And still never really know if it was being recycled or not. You heard some horror stories, but we were doing our part. That was about all you could do really. We were waiting from someone to swoop in and help, like the municipality or somebody, to say something exists. After we realized no one was going to do that we started digging a little bit deeper and we found, in Puerto Montt, an actual recycle center. I was always under the impression, and again I call myself an environmentalist, but I was always under the impression that a recycle center was this magical factory that took things in and turned them into goo and then sent them back out as pure magic dust or something like that. And it’s not, that’s not what a recycle center is at all. A recycle center is just a packaging plant and it sells materials back to the factories that use this stuff. And so we found this place, the Wale Foundation, in Puerto Montt run by a guy who had suffered a lot of burns in an accident and then got really involved in a burned children foundation. So to make money for the burned children foundation he decided to start a recycling plant. He realized real quick that even in Puerto Montt people don’t recycle, even when there is a recycling plant. He was kind of hanging out of his own pocket to keep this thing going. So now at least we have a place to send these things and he’s getting needed recyclables. That was the first victory.
We then teamed up with MSR, and Outdoor Research from Seattle, and 1% for the Planet, Leave No Trace, and the American Alpine Club, and they all put in some money to help us do a little bit of promotion and get the can crushing stuff [crushing of the used gas canisters] together and kind of helped us get off the ground just a little bit. After getting in touch with the Wale Foundation and all these players showing their support we were then approached by Patagonia, the Company, who came in and said “you guys are in position for one of our grants.” That was about 9 months to a year ago, when finally that all came through and we were able to buy a container. We organized the shipment of the container on the Navimag which takes it up north where they recycle the stuff at the Wale foundation before bringing it back. We have this system in place now, and we know it’s actually going to a recycle center. It all stems from us not wanting to throw our own stuff away, there’s a bigger picture.
BDW: Can you explain more about the relationship between the program and the city?
BP: More than our own stuff and wanting, like we said, to give the people that know better a chance to recycle. Another big point that has been a difficult part in how it works locally is that after those first couple years we found out real quick that our job isn’t getting the town together to be the greenest town in Patagonia. It’s just very difficult to get, to be that person in this town. Which is why we always needed, at least in some way, to have a representative in the local government in Puerto Natales, a representative we now have. So that’s been helpful, it means we don’t have to deal with the local municipality, which can slow things down and red tape you a little bit. In the end it [the program] will have more exposure.
RM: Having someone on the inside like that, it also gives them a Spanish voice to listen to and not just the gringo saying “recycle!” They don’t want to hear that, through the municipality there’s also some promotions, some little things we can get, like newspaper ads or radio ads that kind of thing. Otherwise the municipality is really not that involved compared with the American Alpine club and all these other sponsors. An example is we got these posters printed so we can get the word out and we offered the municipality a logo spot, like “hey, just to show you guys are at least in support of this” and they kind of who’d and hawed and needed to see the poster first and all this stuff and they weren’t even going to give any money [for the printing of the poster] like the rest of the companies. I mean three or four weeks went by and all the other companies were like “guys come on, we’ve got to get this going, like what’s going on?” Finally we just had to scrap the municipality, and just move forward. If the municipality, in their little way, just banned the whole environmental movement we would still be functioning.
BP: As long as Wale Foundation is going, we’re going.
RM: That’s right, as long as the recycle center is in Puerto Montt we have a system in place with money coming in to ship this one container a month up to Puerto Montt and so far it doesn’t even look like this whole town will fill that one container for months, that’s how little people recycle. We went out and passed around some little invitations to all the business’ last week [the week before the first collection event] saying “hey we have this container now so everyone let’s go be a part of this.”
BP: When the little flier went out to all of the local business’ there wasn’t a lot of feedback, but I’ve already gotten calls [wanting to make sure the collection is happening], from our friends and other people who own business’ that either are like-minded or know it’s good for business to be green. Whatever the reason may be, we do have some support and I know there’s going to be at least three restaurants we visit tomorrow and two other hotels or hostels that are definitely starting to save.
BDW: In addition to the normal recycling, how does the canister program work?
BP: The way Rustyn runs the canister program is actually kind of a win-win. Because we’re getting all these halves, and quarters; they’re [canisters of gas from camp stoves] not enough that anyone is going to buy it, but just a drag to throw away and they were being thrown away. And over there [the outfitting business they run] you’ve seen we have the “here’s the empty ones, grab some partially full ones for free.” It has made it easier to recycle the ones that are half filled and also inspired people to bring some back.
Other things that have helped with the number of canisters we get back is, for one, now every time our guides come back they clean out the little refugio areas of canisters that are at least empty and they always bring back a handful with some gas left in them. Also, we’ve got our poster up, I’m surprised sometimes, at all the refugios now. It’s at CONAF, who we weren’t high on CONAF’s list for a long time for whatever reason, and they’ve actually come get these. I’ve seen it in stores around town, I’ve seen it at bus stops, and I’ve seen it at the border. So that’s been something, that again, is to show they [the locals] don’t absolutely hate the environment.
BDW: Are you getting any support or feedback from refugios and concessionaires about the collection of the gas canisters?
RM: We talk to managers and stuff, they’re like “hey good stuff, let’s get involved, that’s great.” But that’s been the same kind of thing for years now.
BP: They’re thankful for it, I think. again we’re kind of waiting to see at the end of the year. Maybe they’re going to show up on our doorstep with all that they had left. It’s a little bit better on the Fantastico Sur side just because of our relationship with AMA, which is their non-profit environmental organization. They’re super receptive. They took up a bunch of posters and they have twice dropped off a bag of canisters, no glass, or plastic. Even though you’ve been there, they have it all separated [all the Fantastico Sur campsites have separated recycling bins]. That’s just a lie, it’s just to keep the gringos off their backs. It might be changing a little bit now.
RM: Again, if they give it to some guy and they say “Nope, we recycled it” but they know full well that guy has a big ‘ole pit in his backyard and fills it with broken glass and bottles. That’s not recycling that’s just dump service. The only recycle plant anywhere near here is Puerto Montt.
BDW: Are you having a measurable impact on the Wale Foundation recycle center?
RM: One container a month, it depends on what it is. Because he gets different amounts of money for different things. Glass has a price, plastic has a price, cardboard, greyboard, tin all those different things. Clear plastic is actually the one that’s the most valuable, but it takes up so much space it has to be crushed before it can be used. He says it’s almost not even worth shipping it in that sense, even if you did fill it all with clear plastic. But technically ounce for ounce that’s what actually has the most refund in that sense. We’re about to ship our first container up and it’s taken this long with the grants and getting it all legal and getting all the players lined up and it has to be on the boat, transported to the recycle center, unloaded and then transported back to the boat, back to here and then back out to the spot. So to get all these players in line with commitments on prices so we can make a budget took a year. So it’s just now getting going. So all these people who might not, even refugios, have been too involved, now that something’s really happening, like really, people might come out of the woodwork now.
BP: We’re hoping.
BDW: Are there plans to grow the program?
RM: This grant from Patagonia is really nice, it’s given annually, so we’re up for next year and the year after that and the year after that as long as we don’t just buy beer with the money then they’re pretty quick on renewing. So if this goes really well next year’s grant money could go to another container, it could go two a month, or maybe get a truck that could go around and pick up everyone’s stuff for free or hire an employee to drive. There’s all these possibilities. Now that it’s no longer an idea, now that it’s no longer “hey we have this thing we want to do.” Now that we have a container and we have the grant and we have the funding. Now it’s possible to go to other foundations and say “hey look, this is really already happening. This is the next step. This is what we need.” And people, I think will notice it a little bit quicker. We have a paypal account that we use where people have made donations to just support and again, aside from grants like from bigger companies, the best way for people around the world to give us their support. Because spreading posters in New York City about recycling canisters here isn’t going to do us any good. It’s really just helping us fund it and that result in having a full time employee next year or having a second container.
BDW: Are there any other obstacles you’re facing?
RM: NaviMag, they cut their cost in half and then the municipality stepped up and because it has “x” amount of space on the boat they, and I’m not sure how it worked exactly, forced the hand of NaviMag to give us the other half for free, but on the municipalities tab. So the municipalities not paying for it, but they did use their weight to get the other half for free. So we were able to get this eight month system into our budget and it actually works. But if that ever stopped [the municipality forcing NaviMag to give half for free] we would need more money, so we’re not going to stop going after the grants and the support and all of that. We’d like to get it completely independent. But Puerto Natales or Punta Arenas should have a recycling packaging plant. It shouldn’t have to be in Puerto Montt.
BP: Hopefully, and I mean it starts with a drop of water, if the local community really sees that need. I’m pretty sure we could support a recycling plant in Punta Arenas, but if we depend on who’s doing it now it won’t happen.
RM: I don’t know if it’s a population problem, even though Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas are a much bigger area, and have a recycling plant, they still have problems. The city even had recycling bins, they had stuff on the radio, and they cannot get locals who live across the street [from the recycling center] to recycle in Puerto Montt. So this foundation is just dying and if there’s not support then it’s just not going to happen. You can lead a horse to water type of thing.
BDW: One last question, can you explain how the can crusher came to be?
BP: Rustyn sat down with a local metal worker and came up with that whole design.
RM: We didn’t want anything electric or hydraulics or anything. So it’s just a manual crusher. We had to send MSR the design and show them what we were doing and they had to approve it to make sure it was really ok. It was pretty ingenious.
BP: It’s rudimentary, but it’s been going for almost a year now.
RM: It’s burly.
BP: Yeah, it’s burly. It takes like three people, really, to crush one can because it gets a little unstable.
By the Numbers
(Most are listed in 50 kilogram flour bags, the easiest way to collect everything, to put this in a number easier to comprehend 50 kilograms of flour equates to about 25 gallons. These numbers are estimates and only date back a little over a year, Bill and Rustyn estimate all could be about doubled)
- Glass: 70-80 bags of glass,
- Plastic: 50 bags of plastic
- Cardboard: More cardboard than either of them would like to remember
- Gas Canisters: 1300 individual cans
If people have other questions about the Erratic Rock recycling program Bill and Rustyn have very kindly agreed to answer E-mails from people. You can reach them at:info@erraticrock.com
