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RECYCLING
PROGRAM

March 16, 2020

How the journey of a bottle cap helps the children and the environment

Located in the neighborhood of Parque Patricios, the Hospital “Prof.Dr Juan P. Garrahan” has been for a long time the biggest free pediatrics care center in the country, attending over 26 thousand children each year by an immense infrastructure of over more than 4000 professionals. Besides treating patients in different states of gravity, the hospital accommodates children (and their mothers) that live far from the city and need to carry out an outpatient treatment. All of this is possible through “Casa Garraham”.

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But, how does the hospital work? In order to bring an outstanding and constant service over the year, the center is financed by both the national state as well as the city government. However, in order to keep improving its infrastructure, the foundation created the “Program of Recycling and Environment” to encourage the recycling of different kinds of materials. These materials are collected all over the country and are later sent to a recycling facility in Buenos Aires, were they are classified, compacted and packed to be sold to different manufacturers. The capital obtained is used to expand the capabilities of “Casa Garrahan”, buy new equipment for the hospital, invest in the development of scholarships, and other actions that has helped the complex become what it is today. In other words, we are talking about an initiative that supports the care of children while promoting the wellbeing of the environment; it couldn’t be better.

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The trip of a bottle cap

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In order to fully comprehend the complexity of the logistics to make this program work, we need to visit the household of Luis, who lives 3000 km away from Buenos Aires, in the city of Ushuaia. Here, everything begins with the decision of Luis to not just throw the bottle of water that he just finished for lunch, but instead take a few seconds to open it, throw the bottle in a recycling “bell” bin, and then proceed to save the cap in a different container. This cap will begin its journey in solitude, but as the weeks go by it will start to meet with other companions from different colors that will serve the same purpose: reunite in the fire stations from the city.

Four times during the year, collecting days are organized and recyclable materials from the citizens are collected, all coordinated by the voluntary Viviana Remy, who has supported the program for more than 13 years. Here, Luis, who has now formed a family of more than 100 caps, decides to handle them to the assistants who receive thousands of resources each year: paper, caps, bronze keys, CDs/DVDs, X-Ray plates and aluminium cans. These items are separated into groups, bundled and sent, either by sea or land to Buenos Aires, were the bottle cap from Luis, the papers which were improperly printed by a trip agency and the old CDs from a computer store, do their last stop before being transformed for the benefit of the industry.

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Is wonderful project that begings with those that decide to give mother nature a relief by not accumulating unnecessary bags of trash, continues with a team of volunteers that work continuously to deliver the materials to the right hands, and orchestrated by a endless chain of donations from logistic operators that assist in the loading of the materials, custom brokers that bring down all barriers and the transportation business that provide the long journey to Buenos Aires.

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In Arbue, we do not only commit to the recycling program for businesses, but we also offer free stevedoring services to the foundation for the loading / unloading of containers in the ships from Patagonia Shipping Lines. We believe that in the end is all about contributing with our own cap.

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