The new non-profit recycling group, UVERDE, which stands for, “United we see, educate, recycle and dedicate our time to the environment,” led its first community clean-up campaign in Los Barriles on Feb. 8th.Tehroma Lask, owner of Vos Construction, founded UVERDE, after traveling and realizing that Los Barriles is her “little spot in the world,” and she wants to keep it clean. “Start small, and you will have somewhere to go,” she says. “You can’t educate people about recycling, if they don’t know about littering.” She began by first educating her own work crews: making them build outhouses on each job site rather than taking discrete walks up the arroyos, and encouraging them to separate rubble from trash. (When dumped together in a pile, the wind blows trash everywhere). She said, at first, her employees came to her UVERDE meetings because they had to: she was the boss and was paying them to come. Now, however, they approach her with ideas and thoughts about how to make the program more successful.
One new program called, “Adopt an Area,” highlights businesses who clean an area of at least 200 meters as “sponsors of a cleaner East Cape.” Tehroma had to specify “200 meters” because initially, every business she approached agreed to keep their business clean, but did NOT include the areas just to the front or sides of their business. So far, she has recruited six businesses.
Tehroma plans to make “trash clean-up day” a monthly event the first Friday of every month in order to educate the town about litter. For the first event, Vos Construction and other local businesses donated trucks, trash bags and water for the volunteers. Mexican, Canadian, and American business owners, windsurfers, retirees, skilled laborers, school children and everyone in-between, worked side by side filling up large black plastic bags with trash. Over 100 volunteers participated, not including all the school children. By the end of the event, six dump truck loads had been collected and taken to the dump.
Vice-president of UVERDE, Javier Humberto Cota, rallied all the local schools and businesses into participating. As I dropped my daughter off at school that morning, her teacher said that each classroom had a certain designated time and area to clean. This event was organized! Practicing what she preaches, Tehroma took all her crews off their jobs that day and had them hauling trash instead. She said with a smile, “I hope my clients don’t mind.” I’m sure they don’t. And, if they do, they know enough not to complain.
The operations were presided over by a huge, giant-sized, papier-mâché puppet of “Adelita,” created by Tehroma’s mom, artist and founder of Vos Construction, Sara Smith. “Adelita” was a famous Mexican revolutionary hero, and the giant puppet brought a radical, thrilling energy to the event. Excited by the turn-out, everyone was in good spirits fighting over garbage, making jokes (“We don’t have to worry about recycling cardboard ‘cause the cows eat it all”), and spouting off “facts,” (“It generally takes a plastic bottle 10 years to disintegrate, but in the Baja sun, it takes 10 days!”)
I brought my own bag because I was too lazy to drive the five miles to town. Even outside of town, I was inspired by two young Mexican men collecting garbage. Within minutes, a couple of Gringa friends rode by on a golf cart filled with full bags and yelled, “Yeah!” and took my picture. Finally, a Mexican business owner in a big flatbed truck stopped, walked across the street, and handed me a bottle of water. Face it, everyone wants a witness to their altruistic acts, and Tehroma and her UVERDE team provided that and much more… The quote on UVERDE’s pamphlet says, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world”—Mahatma Gandhi
I filled my bag with a new vigor and sense of community spirit!
