No blue bins here

Fort San Felipe, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

How much of that would you recycle?

Like in many developing countries, the Dominican Republic faces a growing challenge with what to do with their garbage. Currently there is no apparent recycling. Sadly you have to throw all of the potentially recyclable material in to the trash or in some cases on the road and into the street. Recycling can be very profitable and provide jobs. People in developing countries all over the world tend to reuse many things that we would typically throw out and in many cases fix broken items and resell them. With recycling we could go one step further by creating programs that encourage recycling, creating jobs both on the collection side and in post collection manufacturing opportunities from the recycled materials. The recycling model suggests that in order to create a successful business model from recycling – in other words make money - you need to have large quantities of recyclable material available. If you could come up with some sort of system that would attract people to collect these materials (like paying money for bottles, cans, glass and paper) we would certainly see ample supply. Surely, there must be interest in this recycling business opportunity.