Tenerife generates 600,000 tons of waste every year, a weight equivalent to 12 ships like the Titanic, of which “more than 90% collected in the container, the rest are buried.” For this reason, according to the Minister for Sustainable Development and the Fight against Climate Change, Javier Rodríguez, the council has launched, among others, the People + Sustainable project. More than 120 families from six Tenerife municipalities –Guía de Isora, Granadilla de Abona, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, La Victoria de Acentejo, Santiago del Teide and Vilaflor de Chasna– have already signed up for this initiative.
what is it based on People + Sustainable? The project tries to accompany these family nuclei in a process of training and awareness of a more sustainable life model of managing their daily lives to, for example, improve waste separation. It is a program designed and coordinated by the Island Corporation through the Environmental Education Unit and the Island Society for the Promotion of Persons with Disabilities (Sinpromi). Municipalities also collaborate.
“These awareness and training actions complement other very important projects that this government group is launching for the implementation of recycling companies,” Javier Rodríguez stressed yesterday at a press conference. In this first edition of this year, 20 families will participate for each of the six municipalities mentioned. The program is made up of thematic meetings on climate change, energy, mobility, purchases, waste and water.
Together with these meetings, lasting two and a half hours, there are parallel activities for the boys and girls of the registered families, in addition to support to improve the daily management of the home, visits to the Environmental Complex of Tenerife –the largest waste treatment center on the island, located in Arico– and other places of interest, personalized attention on matters of waste management, energy, etc. and the delivery of a simple saving kit or equipment.
This month the first presentation sessions of the project start, in which the families that will take part in it will participate. The first will take place on the 17th in La Victoria de Acentejo, on the 19th in Santiago del Teide, on Monday the 23rd in La Laguna, on Tuesday the 24th in Guía de Isora and on the 26th in Vilaflor de Chasna.
The island councilor pointed out that these types of actions are part of the “first step, and therefore the most important, of the waste hierarchy that is established by law, and that is none other than prevention.” “They are aimed at generating a lower volume of waste that has an impact on minimizing the voluminous figures that he was talking about before,” said Javier Rodríguez.
