Punto Verde Todos Santos

Punto Verde, The Todos Santos Recycling Center, is a community supported for-profit business spearheaded by the irrepressibly committed Alex Miro.  

If you like what you are hearing but don't want to read too much more, just know this. It's a runaway success, and we are ramping up faster than expected. This fundraising campaign is to buy a bigger truck that will make Punto Verde profitable by reducing the number of trips required to transport the materials to the processing center an hour away in La Paz.  We are also planning for the first class of handpicked local students to attend Niños Verdes (Green Kids) at CSU, taught by Alex Miro. They will be deputized as recycling mercenaries. 

 If you are down to hear the whole story, here you go:

 Todos Santos is a Pueblo Magico, a beautiful Mexican fishing and farming village, with an unlined dump and a dirty habit of burning garbage.

 Alex Miro successfully ran a First Friday recycling campaign from his office supply store in Todos Santos for over a year; his challenges included being ticketed by the police for garbage left outside after hours by well meaning but poorly informed recyclers, rising gasoline prices, falling material values, and operating at a loss. The man is unflappable and a true believer. 

 Alex created a phased plan to grow Punto Verde from a simple collection and distribution center into a sophisticated for-profit business.  Visiting scientists from Colorado State University reviewed his plans, were impressed, and all informally agreed to work together in the future.  Alex is very open to any help to create a more successful project.

Last year, through a sweetheart lease with a local developer, land was secured for a permanent recycling center.   

Phase One of Punto Verde was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign created in July 2014 by Los Amigos de Baja,  high school students in Baja Sur on a service learning trip.  Some items purchased by the Kickstarter campaign include a fence, pop-up shade tents, storage and shipping containers, binding materials for paper and cardboard, a heavy duty scale, and a small pickup truck. 

 Punto Verde opened on January 2, 2015.

In the first month of operation, more material was recycled than in every First Friday campaign of 2014 combined.  A year's worth of recyclable materials kept out of the dump in just one month.

 We'd planned to scale up communications about the Center in March 2015. We'd like to get the business community involved- all the hotels, restaurants, tacos stands and bars. We'd love to see more participation from the local community- and part of the scaling of the operation calls for Alex to pay locals for recyclables in the future.  We need to expand our capacity first. Great problem to have in month three. We are thrilled.

At our current intake, we'd need 9.34 trips to La Paz a month to deliver the recyclables for processing. With the new truck, we can do it in 1.5 trips.  Less time, less gasoline, more (some?) money left over at the end of the month.

 We have the opportunity to buy a reliable, small flatbed truck at a gift price. $3000 USD. $1000 has been committed by a private donor.  After fees and commissions, the money raised by this campaign would allow us to purchase the truck; create the materials, uniforms and fund the course for the first class of Niños Verdes; line the fence with shade cloth to beautify the center and pacify those worried about the look of Punto Verde, and begin outreach to the business community. 

Every bit helps, and we are so grateful, if nothing else, that you've read this far!  

Visit our Facebook page

Visit our original Kickstarter and view the video


Smoke plume from burning garbage.