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“Good morning, Recycling!” Mirta González shouts through the streets of the Primero de Mayo working-class neighborhood in the city of Santa Marta, on the Colombian Caribbean coast.
She repeats the phrase several times, going to each house to collect the bags that the neighbors give her with plastic bottles, lids, cardboard, cans or glass.
“I am an environmental helper,” the 30-year-old woman, a native of the municipality of San Francisco, located in northern Venezuela, proudly states.
González is part of a group of 125 recyclers and environmental reclaimers in Santa Marta, most of them migrants, who fight to dignify her trade while helping the planet.
Her work is part of a project of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Acnur, and the Italian NGO CESVI dedicated to humanitarian work for more than three decades.
“We observed that when migrants arrived in Colombia, many began to recycle,” explains Kriss Ovalle, one of the project coordinators at CESVI.
"In Venezuela it is not so common, but here we had no other option," argues González, referring to the work of her and her partner, who arrived in Colombia at the beginning of 2017 together with her four young children.
"My husband has been recycling for five years now, and I have been recycling for three and a half," continues the woman, who earns between one and seven dollars a day, depending on what luck has.
Mirta González collects the usable material from the Samario del Sur Institute in Santa Marta (Colombia) on February 6, 2023.Carlos Parra
Their reality is similar to that of other recyclers that CESVI identified in impoverished areas of Santa Marta.
More than 90 were migrants, while close to 30 were Colombians.
UNHCR and the NGO undertook actions to help them since August 2021. "First, it was important to make them see the impact of their work," says Ovalle.
This is how the group began to carry out days to clean and recover public spaces.
“We built a park with car tires,” recalls González with a laugh.
The idea was for them to learn about caring for the environment to become aware of their work, and thus be able to ask the community for support.
“I myself went house to house telling people how to separate the garbage and letting them know that I was going to pick it up,” says González.
In front of her is his nephew Rubén, who drives the cart in which they both collect the reusable material.
"These things later become plastic chairs, more bags, or more bottles," says the woman, holding one of the pots in her hand.
Like many in the group, González has the backing to work legally in Colombia and has grown to love her trade despite the difficulties.
“If you go to my house, you will realize that we are a family of real recyclers”, she says with conviction.
The wheeled container and González's denim uniform bear the emblem of Asorecuperar, an association made up of 70 project beneficiaries who joined forces to fight for decent working conditions.
Acnur gave them the appropriate clothing and gave them ten carts to carry out their work.
"Before, I used to recycle with a sack over my shoulder and many looked at me badly, but now people recognize me," she says motivated, her eyes on her shirt sleeves.
It is not known how many recyclers like González there are in Colombia, but until 2018, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development estimated that 30,500 people were engaged in this trade.
Aníbal Peroz, president of Asorecuperar, separates materials for recycling.Carlos Parra
The mother and the rest of the association members still face challenges to recycle.
"We need a warehouse to store the material and our own cooperative to sell it at better prices," says Aníbal Peroz, president of Asorecuperar and leader of the recyclers in the Villa Betel neighborhood, a neighborhood with streets without asphalt and flimsy houses, in where misery and state oblivion reign.
The 63-year-old man is a fellow citizen of González and is concerned about the precipitous drop in recycling prices in recent months.
"Yesterday I barely made 13,000 pesos," which in exchange is less than three dollars, says Peroz, a widowed father with a seven-year-old daughter.
Despite the fact that CESVI ended its work with the Santa Marta recyclers at the end of last year, Alba Marcellán, head of the UNHCR office in Barranquilla, maintains that the agency will continue to support Asorecuperar.
"We are going to accompany the process of formalizing the Association so that the recyclers reach their objectives," says the official, who has been working for more than a decade for migrants and refugees in the country.
In the breezes of the Magdalena river
Without anticipating it, UNHCR's work also spread to the El Ferry neighborhood in Barranquilla, a place where poverty is exactly the same as that of the corridors of Villa Betel, in Santa Marta.
There, hand in hand with the social ministry, they have supported a group of 30 recycling mothers.
Mariangela, Nairis, Esther, and Aramis live in a sector of the Ferry, known as Brisas del Río, which separates Barranquilla from the municipality of Soledad by means of a pile of garbage that rises between two streets, on the banks of the Magdalena River.
At that border, mothers leave at whatever time is necessary to collect as much PET-type plastic, cans, and archival material as possible in order to eat.
They already have uniforms to identify themselves, boots to make their way in the dirt, gloves to handle the garbage and hats to protect themselves from the raging sun of the region.
A group of women recyclers gathered before going out to work in Barranquilla (Colombia) on February 7.Carlos Parra
Although most of them are not aware of the positive impact of their work, some are very clear about it.
“The garbage that we collect is used to do many things.
I know because I researched it.
Our work is important, ”says Nairis Rojas, sitting in an armchair with her hands placed on her belly eight months pregnant with what will be her second child.
The gift of belonging
All the beneficiaries of these projects agree that the recognition of their existence has been the most important privilege.
“Before we felt isolated, but now we are part of something,” explains Víctor Ramírez, a waste picker in Bahía Concha, near Santa Marta.
"Mirta is a very important woman, because she contributes to the planet," González complements, speaking of herself in the third person, with flashes of light in her eyes.
As of February 2022, according to data from Migración Colombia, there are 169,941 Venezuelan migrants in Santa Marta and Barranquilla.
In the country, the total is 2,477,588.
Marcellán insists that the main premise of the actions of UNHCR and the organizations with which he collaborates is to "continue to encourage the population and make them feel more Colombian every day so that it becomes a richer, more nourished and more unique country." ”.
Young people and children wait their turn to sell what they have collected outside the collection points in Barranquilla.Carlos Parra