Will’s Visit

Will’s Visit

During our first visit to Sri Lanka in Spring 2015, we spent most of our time in and out of manufacturing facilities, traveling back and forth between our partner university campuses in Colombo and Jaffna, and in meetings to consolidate relationships with and between...
Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Many months ago we alluded to an upcoming project in Sri Lanka. At the time, we thought we would be partnering with Dilmah Conservation, the human and environmental services arm of Dilmah Tea Company, http://www.dilmahconservation.org/. We had been speaking with...
Update

Update

We’ve been quiet on these pages (though not on the ground) for many months. Cooperativa Nueva Mente continues to manufacture and sell products with the hotpress and now conducts weekly training sessions for a youth group led by a local ceramics teacher. We keep...

Armed Robbery

We’ve previously written about the fragility of recycling cooperatives, always on the cusp of economic insolvency because of equipment breakdowns, or fires, or market fluctuations in the price of recyclables, or family illnesses, even sabotage – and the...
4500

4500

This is the number of households in Morón, the Buenos Aires suburb, from which members of cooperativa Nueva Mente collect the weekly rubbish that they then separate, sort, and sell to recycling middlemen. Until about 1 month ago this figure described a daily routine,...
Water Catchment

Water Catchment

While the Nueva Mente/Contenido Prensado group in Buenos Aires have been investigating new markets and designs for their trashbins – including domestic and industrial indoor models – Sarah Seitz, at Queens University, has been experimenting with building...