Clean Cities

Program aimed at school students that will raise awareness about the appropriate solid waste management.

Our solution is to create a program that can be replicated throughout primary and secondary schools that are in areas that are going through the problem of garbage accumulation. This would be a competitive program in which habits and knowledge about solid waste management would be evaluated. Starting by teaching the young community of San Juan de Lurigancho about the correct classification of solid waste, our goal is to clean this district, and that future generations know the importance of keeping the streets free of trash. Furthermore, in order to keep track of how different schools are going through our program, we will have a web page in which all the rules and guidelines are displayed.

The problem that we want to address specifically is the accumulation of garbage in certain zones due to poor solid waste management. In Peru, there are several districts that suffer from the problem of not having a clear plan for the collection and classification of garbage, because of that, garbage is accumulated and becomes putrefactive. The accumulation of garbage later causes air and water pollution in the area due to the toxic substances it contains. Likewise, it causes the proliferation of rodents, cockroaches and flies, which are transmitters of diseases such as diarrhea, Dengue and Malaria.

During the last months, we have investigated the accumulation of garbage in the district of San Juan de Lurigancho, which has a population of 1,117,629 inhabitants. This is the Peruvian district with the highest contamination by solid waste according to a report of the Peruvian National Institute of Statistics and Informatics. In this district the contamination of the air and water has already been identified, which was mainly due to informal commerce, industrial activity and the large amounts of garbage produced in homes.

The generation, inadequate segregation and accumulation of garbage is mainly due to the population that resides in the district. This is also the case in many other areas in Peru, the common factor that we found among them was the lack of education and awareness about the correct management of solid waste and the impact it can have on the community.

Our solution will aid the citizens residing in San Juan de Lurigancho, one of the districts with the largest population in the city of Lima. Provided its residents are mainly part of the low and middle socio-economic levels, they have a poor environmental awareness and a vague idea of how to manage waste in their district. Furthermore, San Juan de Lurigancho holds a rapid increase regarding population growth and the inadequate consumption practices that indeed have been contributing to the issue’s prevalence.

Apart from that, the support given by the municipality of the district is deficient not only due to the fact that no consciousness campaign or program has ever been organized but also because of the lack of effective equipment, refuse collection routes and audit mechanisms. 

This project will allow us to improve their quality of life by cleaning up garbage and solid waste thrown away in the streets and communal areas in general. Moreover, it will encourage them to reuse the trash with creativity and innovation. For instance, they could transform it into compost or the so-called ecobricks.

Besides, the solution proposed will educate the district's youth population on how to boost solid waste management by organizing recycling competitions between independent groups or schools. While enhancing these, the environmental and sanitary quality of the area will result favored, and it will allow families to be more aware of the problem, persuading them to get accustomed to these positive practices.

The first step was to conduct extensive research on the problem at hand. We raised the information from reliable documents from regional, governmental and independent organizations (among which is the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Education, the United Nations, and the Municipality of San Juan de Lurigancho) in order to obtain a complete picture. News, reports and existing national waste management plans were reviewed to also observe what has been the progress and level of commitment of the community in the issue, including citizens and authorities. Likewise, solutions previously applied in other regions and countries (e.g. Argentina) were examined to verify what the specific needs of populations from similar environments are and how they focused the model or solution.

Lastly, although we had the intention to contact directly the Municipality of the district or of any area with similar conditions, no reply was received. Setting aside this, it is a priority to take into consideration the scarcity of institutionality of these organizations, which definitely constitutes another cause of the problem to solve. However, since it is a general difficulty in almost part of Peru, our team members also may count as potential users.

For now, our solution is the concept of the program Cleaning Cities. This is the status of the solution, because only an investigation of the problem was carried out as well as the designing of a suitable model as a response. It has not yet been implemented in any particular user; however, the tools are available to do so in the near future.

The bases of our program are on our website, that is digital technology. This is how we will democratize the information of the project and make it accessible for everyone. Also, we are innovating in the way solid waste management is taught, because we are using interactive games and competitive activities that encourage children to participate and make the event more appealing. All the competition will be supported by the website, which will allow schools to register, fill the progress of their students progress and compare them with other ones (website is being developed). In the far future the web will support competition against other schools, showing the winners of each year. Despite the competition, our website will also teach the children how to recycle their wastes in useful things such as the fabrication of ecobricks, compost or shopping bags.

Taking into account that approximately 46 000 students attend primary school in San Juan de Lurigancho district, we hope to help up to 30 000 of them with our program.

Our goals:

• Educating responsible and conscious children who relay the importance of good solid waste management, and so, improve the conditions in San Juan de Lurigancho district.

• Obtaining financial support for trash and recycling containers through gaining social media attention. 

• Making schools in other districts in Lima to participate in the program through media presence and coordination with schools and district authorities.

• Creating strategic alliances with recycling centers that could buy the garbage gathered by schools through our program. This will be achieved by contacting each one directly and telling them about our project and its goals. If they accept, they will appear on our website.

• Organizing an interescolar event in which different schools compete on the basis of our program, thus increasing the magnitude of the impact of our project. This will be achieved by getting a lot of schools into our program, then, we would coordinate with the municipality to organize the event.

• Obtaining the support of the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Environment that endorses our program and gives it the necessary recognition so that the directors of the different schools have the necessary confidence. For this, we would contact them after having executed the program, that is, with photographic evidence and initial results.

• Disclaimer: the biggest impacts of this project will be visible in the long term, as we are educating the next generation to take care of the environment.

Our solution is an educational program, thus, our goal is to raise awareness and educate the largest number of students in schools. However, the real impact of this program will be seen in the future, therefore, in order to measure the success of the program, the amount of garbage accumulated in schools (in the future), can be compared to the amount nowadays. Moreover, Clean Cities would be contributing to making cities more sustainable.

A possible barrier is the health crisis of COVID-19, which still forces authorities to continue imposing social restrictions. This could mean certain delays when starting to execute our project, since in Peru classes have not been in-person since the beginning of the pandemic. In addition, another obstacle could be that some schools may not be willing to enroll in the program either due to lack of interest or because they do not have the necessary materials (garbage and recycling containers). Finally, we need financial support to be able to advertise our program on social media, which is vital to become recognized by authorities.

Our team is made up of university students of the following degrees: Data Engineering, Economics, Physics, Architecture and Medicine. We have been part or continue to belong to volunteer programs for supporting the education of low-income children (Ensename program), social work projects at schools or poor areas, courses regarding circular economy and different organizations, for example, university magazines and groups completely oriented in defense of an objective. Some of these organizations fight for the preservation of the environment, such as Ecologics Peru and World Cleanup Day, which focus on finding dirty public places and preparing people to clean them up. One of our members is even the secretary in charge of the environment issues at his university. Furthermore, other organizations that we are part of, focus on the defense of minorities, such as the LGBT community, and feminism. In addition, we have knowledge and interest in sociology, politics, indiginous groups, the situation of rural communities, activism and defense of human rights in our country, one of us being a contributor to Amnesty International. What is more, being part of these courses or organizations have made us aware of the lack of proactivity of people regarding the environment, as well as of a variety of methods of education for primary school children and the lack of opportunities that have various groups that are either unprivileged or ignored by society and authorities. Finally, these experiences have become tools for our development of soft skills, leadership, knowledge of different realities and recognition of the shortcomings of our country, making us faithful representatives of those whom we try to help through this solution.

Currently, we are not working with any. However, it is an objective for this year.

The majority of members of our team are girls (exactly three out of a total of five members), who are under 18 years old. Our program is trying to combat the solid waste on streets and teaching students how to recycle it in different ways, thus increasing the sustainability of the community. We would use the money in order to expand our solution to more districts of Lima and even other provinces in Peru, encouraging equally both girls and boys to take actions regarding the environment. In addition, if we gain the prize, we would be able to financially support the school with the materials they need to execute the program.

Our program will improve everyone’s quality of life, both men and women, since it is forming better citizens. Also, it is worth mentioning that we will not make distinction on who should be responsible for managing the garbage, because there are still stereotypes in Peru about the role of women as housewives. Moreover, we principally will use the money to carry out our program at school in other districts or regions of Peru, where there is a lack of equality between girls and boys.