On March 15, 2023, we inaugurated the “Recletas” project in collaboration with the Junta Comunal de Don Bosco and Recicladora Nacional de Panama. The Recicletas are bicycles modified with collection wagons to collect recyclable material from door to door in the homes of the Terremar and Bello Horizonte communities in the township of Don Bosco.

The design of the “Recicletas” seeks to generate models of household collection and gathering that stimulate the correct classification, collection and recycling of waste so that these behaviors later become habits in the population. For the construction of the Recicletas, mountain bikes were acquired and modified with wagons built with locally salvaged materials. The structures were made from steel tubes from old discarded racks; second-use wheels, axles and pillow blocks were purchased from motorcycle workshops; the articulation is arrowheads rescued from an auto mechanic shop in Las Acacias; the jumbo bags or “bigbags” were donated by the company CALESA in Aguadulce and the labor was carried out by blacksmiths, welders and painters rehabilitated and in search of a resocialization due to addiction in the REMAR Association through its workshops in Chilibre.

Faced with the problems of poor collection, the option is to burn or dump the waste in unauthorized places, creating serious health and environmental problems. The project seeks to take advantage of recyclable materials, promote their correct disposal and prevent health problems generated by the lack of waste disposal options. The collected waste will be transported to the collection facility to be reclassified, weighed and compacted.

The idea is that the project can be expanded to other hard-to-reach communities and replicated anywhere in the country since it does not emit greenhouse gases and has a very low carbon footprint.

The “Recicletas” are an example of how, with limited resources, ingenuity and creativity, solutions can be generated to problems such as the lack of collection systems for recycling recoverable materials, reducing the volume of garbage generated and avoiding the pollution of rivers, streams and oceans.