An Overview Of Our Solution
Our history with appropriate waste management and behavior change related to one of the main challenges of Panama started 10 years ago. After many projects, recycling has taken momentum not only by the number of projects funded by local governments and the private sector but also by the awareness created in the community and the number of policies laws approved in the last year. ANCON´s initiatives have been pivotal in promoting this change. ANCON initiated with projects when there was a minuscule environmental culture and when there was no hope for any norm or legal framework promoting recycling. Our persistence and the success of the projects executed by ANCON provided the platform to gain credibility among the community, the private sector and the government institutions. We are a reference for recycling and the replication of projects at different levels.
- Population Impacted: 55,000 people
- Continent: North America
Last name
Organization type
Context Analysis
Panama is a country wiPanama is a country with very limited environmental education provided by the school system. At the same time, Panama has one of the highest incomes per capita which leads to more consumption and higher levels of waste. Our garbage collection system has many deficiencies, Panamanians do not take responsibility for their waste as they see it as a responsibility of the government and getting rid of waste in rivers and empty lots is seen as a common and a justified behavior in lieu of a good collection service. No recycling laws existed for the last 10 years since ANCON started working on waste management and recycling. However, three important waste management and recycling laws have been passed, one, banning polyethylene bags, another one making recycling mandatory within government institutions and a zero waste culture law. All of these laws were drafted or lobbied with ANCON´s support..
Describe the technical solution you wanted the target audience to adopt
The solution to stop pollution of rivers, coasts and oceans and the collapse of our landfills and their correspondent CO2 emissions is the separation of materials at the source before it gets to the sewage systems that are collapsed with waste. This is achieved by knocking on doors house by house in the areas where we work, providing information on the impact of inappropriate waste management in ecosystems and humans, promoting the reduction of waste, the use of friendly products and lastly, providing physical spaces to recycle (installing recycling stations) and logistics to collect the recycables, coordinating with the authorities for a better collection system, bringing the private sector on board with resources and in-kind support and through mass media and social media campaigns almost at a daily basis.
Type of intervention
Describe your behavioral intervention
We try to inculcate a new way of looking at waste, first, we try to convince individuals that waste and its appropriate management is a responsibility of the person who generates it and not only the responsibility of the institution that is in charge of collecting it. That the lack of appropriate collection is not an excuse to throw our garbage in illegal areas including rivers. We are also trying to involve those who are part of the problem (garbage collectors who tear apart bags and disperse it looking for valuables) to be part of the solution. As a result of our educational campaigns we are seeing how people have learned to segregate and separate at the source, and how much less waste is brought or deposited in our recycling stations. More people ask us to install recycling stations in their communities, more people want to know what other materials we are collecting and for that reason we put together a website www.basuracerocambiatubarrio.org where there is information on all the recycling sites available in the Panama city to recycle different types of materials.
As needed, please explain the type of intervention in more detail
In 2015, a PPP was established among the Municipality, the Waste Authority, AB Inbev, and ANCON to work in three corregimientos. Education was done, knocking door by door providing a information on the types of materials collected, the information on the closest recycling station where monitors provided more education. The materials are now taken to a collection center ran by ANCON for further segregation and commercialization. The model has been adapted as problems were faced and now we have gained plenty of experience that has made ANCON a reference on recycling projects and thanks to this, new projects are about start in other parts of the country such as an island, and another district on the west side of Panama.
Describe your implementation
The first step of the project is the sensibilization and education (which is done as many times as needed and possible) prior to the installation of the recycling stations. More education is provided at each of the recycling stations to close the loop on how the materials are disposed and which materials can or cannot be accepted due to the market constraints for collecting materials in Panama due to the fact that we have no recycling industries in country. This limits the type of materials we can collect, for example types of plastic (we only collect 1 and 2). Repetition is the only option to change behaviors along with the provision of a concrete solution to make a change.
One of the major factors of success, has been having a donor that was flexible and open to our adaptive management recommendations and was willing to try new ways. Their trust on what we recommended was the main factor of success and of course, our timely interventions when changes were needed to ensure the achievement of our goals. Many obstacles were overcome, our strategy started with an idea to collect house by house but the logistical costs were too high, therefore the decision was the establishment of recycling stations by sectors however, they were not used properly so we had to sacrifice some directive positions within the project to hire more promoters and educators and assumed all the project administrative and technical management with the permanent staff. We have 11 recycling stations working well, used and with a weekly collection by the Municipality.
External connections
As mentioned before, our recycling intervention is the result of a public private partnership involving the private sector as the main donor, the Municipality who is the future inheritant of this activity and the Waste Management Authority. In different corregimientos, we add new partners (from the private or local government sectors). These efforts are linked to campaigns with TV and radio stations, policies lobbied by our organization for the prohibition of the use of plastic bags, or foam, incentivizing shopping centers to provide recycling stations for their clients, promoting responsible consumption policies among restaurants and partnering with local governments and other government institutions to replicate this model.
Who adopted the desired behaviors and to what degree?
As mentioned before, our recycling intervention is the result of a public private partnership involving the private sector as the main donor, the Municipality who is the future inheritant of this activity and the Waste Management Authority. In different corregimientos, we add new partners (from the private or local government sectors). These efforts are linked to campaigns with TV and radio stations, policies lobbied by our organization for the prohibition of the use of plastic bags, or foam, incentivizing shopping centers to provide recycling stations for their clients, promoting responsible consumption policies among restaurants and partnering with local governments and other government institutions to replicate this model.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
Overall, including all our recycling projects, not only the last zero waste public private partnership but thee permanent campaigns or events, we have diverted from the landfills an approximate of 900 tons of materials that have been collected and exported to be recycled.
What were some of the resulting co-benefits?
The communities where we work look cleaner, volunteers have been integrated and have learned through the train the trainers methodology, other initiatives are now conduced within the communities by churches and students have got involved with compost projects, urban gardens, reforestation activities as the exposure of the residents to environmental education has triggered a desired to innovate and propose new things. Now, other communities are seeing the results and are asking our organization to support them, to provide them with the know-how to implement the same activities in their communities within the metropolitan area or in islands and beach communities.
Sustainability
Right now, our activity relies on grant funding since the municipality of Panama does not have the authority to collect waste. This will change soon and once the waste collection system is 100% the responsibility of the Panama City Municipality (where 70% of the country’s inhabitants live), the fee paid for collection will subsidize the cost of recycling by the local government. The prices of the recycling materials are too low to rely on market-based revenues to sustain the activity. In the meantime, many policies to promote recycling or banning certain products have materialized this last year thanks to having these types of projects and their campaigns in people’s minds and our lobbying activities with key politicians.
Return on investment
The Basura Cero-Cambia Tu Barrio PPP has invested 1 million in 3 years. The main result of this activity is having an official Zero Waste Program for the Municipality of Panama projected to 20 years, two laws promoting recycling being approved by the Assembly and sanctioned by the President entering into effect in one or two years, and a third one, a Zero Waste Culture Law, three new similar activities being started with private sector funds and IDB funds, and more people and business adopting reducing, reusing and recycling policies voluntarily. This iconic project is an example and a reference for the country and the social return on investment is significant and irreversible.
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
We are replicating this experience in a dense, less educated corregimiento in Panama city, with streets more difficult to access, more red zones, however, the population is eager to find a solution to their waste problem, and the beauty of our solution intervening with a PPP model is that as an NGO we have served as a link to bring different stakeholders together, different institutions from the central government, private sector, other NGOs, the church, volunteers, researchers, and regional initiatives. The original partners have learned to work together, the methodologies and the installed human capacity to engage in new activities is there, new partners are added as needed. Resources needed for this pilot will be higher due to the complexity of the situation but new partners joined and others will join soon, the training materials we are using were prepared with resources from the initial investment.