Recycled ?

There's a gentleman named Francisco Mejía in Managua who manufactures very nice patio furniture from recycled aluminum cans and scrap aluminum. His shop has about a dozen workers.

It is true you see aluminum cans all over Honduras, as trash. There was a guy (Canadian, I think) who bought them up in the Trujillo area, but I think he shipped them to another country, and I have no idea to what purpose. This guy isn´t around any more (might have got shot; lots of people get shot in Trujillo. Seriously.). There was a guy (again, Canadian, I think, but not the same guy as was in Trujillo) down in Choluteca who bought them too, but I heard they went to El Salvador or some place. In Honduras, I here there is now a guy (no, not Canadaian this time) out near the airport who buys the cans, or at least does at certain times of the year (might coincide with a shipping schedule, or something). He might be in the scrap business, or deal in used auto parts, but I do not know his name. I do not know what he pays or what he does with the cans. I asked once, and the kid I saw picking up cans said the owner sends them to Nicaragua! But, remember, this is some 8-year old kid, and he might not be the best authority on the matter.

I cant comment on Nicaragua, but in many places in Honduras people have told me that they can buy recycled plastic parts (bags, packaging, whatever) so cheaply here (made in other countries) that no one has much interest in trying to do that in Honduras. The environment would almost never be considered an end in itself. I have noticed that there is a big increase in using things which cant be easily recycled. Many, many food products which used to be in glass or steel (people often find a use for empty steel cans or glass jars with a cover, etc.), are now in some weird flex-plastic thing which has a more or less useless recycle code number and will probably take 400 years to degrade. More and more restaruants are using styrofoam, often for no apparent reason. Quite a few places now use styrofoam for eat-in food, as well as take-out food. I am not sure how it could be possible that styrofoam could be the cheapest plate-like thing they can buy, but it is not uncommon.

J. Maarten Troost has a travel literature book entitled "Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific". There is a funny chapter section on garbage, and how one guy found an outlet for the aluminum cans, way down in neighboring Australia. He was making some money cleaning up the island and shipping off the island one of the many things which made the place ugly. Of course, the local corrupt government stepped in and create some new tax which eliminated the profit margin and put him out of business. So, shortly thereafter Troost was again walking through the garbage to make the daily trek to the pulperia.