Young people work for the environment Composta SMA

Published March 8th, 2022

In San Miguel de Allende, a group of people concerned about the environment collects organic waste to generate compost and prevent it from generating pollution.

Daniela del Villar commented that the main objective is to prevent all organic waste from reaching the landfill, this is done through green buckets, where people are asked to fill them with their waste and they collect it once a week.

After collecting the bucket with the waste, it is taken to a treatment plant that is by the exit to Dolores and there the treatment is done, which usually lasts from 4 to 6 months, depending on the weather and at the end of the process it ends up being a good quality compost, for any purpose you want to use the land.

This concern was born when she was a child and took a composting course with Silverio, an environmental activist. In her experience, she has worked in different NGOs, but there she realized that nobody was doing anything with organic waste, so she decided to get some people together and start the Composta SMA project.

Del Villar explained that almost always 80 percent of the garbage that is thrown away is recyclable, but it is not done because there are no cultural programs and organic waste is the one that gives garbage a bad reputation because it is the one that spoils and is what makes it disgusting.

Imagine a large-scale municipal landfill, which generates harmful fauna, water contamination, infections, and diseases in the population near the site.

“Organic waste makes up 50 percent by weight of all garbage and if we learn to organize well and remove all organic waste we occupy only 50 percent in these places as well as we will avoid generating pollution through the runoff of that waste, which takes other toxins from other materials and ends up damaging nature,” said Daniela.

In fact, it is considered that all landfills are the second-largest source of methane gas in the world, and this gas is considered harmful to the ozone layer, air, and soil pollution.

With this program, we hope to efficiently manage and disinfect these areas and provide a better quality of life not only to the people who work in these places but also to the surrounding communities.

Daniela commented that “The cleaning staff has always been seen as someone less, but what we don’t realize is that without them we would be drowning in our own toxicity”.

“We started before the pandemic but for the same reason we stopped for almost two years, this year we took it up again starting from the bottom with people who want to contribute and it was with the same neighbors that we talked to, they brought us their organic waste, we work it during the following months since it is like a cake, we have to be monitoring, checking temperature, oxygenation, moving it so that it is a good compost”.

At this moment those who want to participate must enter the page compostasma.com there is a description of what we do and where they can register, registration costs 500 pesos and each collection costs 90 pesos, and is done every week in 19-liter buckets, but they are returned the same amount in compost, so they are subsidizing the production of natural fertilizer, through their own waste and economic means, somehow they are partners in agricultural production or they can use, sell or donate it.