by efeinblatt | Dec 19, 2007 | argentina, cartoneros
Who’s doing what? How will Waste-for-Life BA sustain itself? The only thing we knew for certain before coming to Argentina was that our stay was finite. The time that separated our flight into and out of BA was 6 months; we knew very little else. It’s...
by efeinblatt | Dec 19, 2007 | argentina, cartoneros
In a few hours we’re off to INTI to participate in what is surely our final Waste-for-Life meeting before leaving Buenos Aires. We’ve already begun saying goodbye to our many compañeros, a word that after 6 months of learning and struggling here has real...
by efeinblatt | Dec 16, 2007 | argentina
Tomas delivered the Kingston Hotpress to INTI on Thursday as scheduled, and after about 2 hours of fiddling around with the electrical installation, we had a go of it with the strips of plastic bag that Caroline had been cutting up all morning – a task that was...
by efeinblatt | Dec 12, 2007 | argentina, cartoneros
While waiting for the final tweaks to the hotpress – by the way, Tomas has tweaked it and is delivering it to INTI this Thursday, December 13 – the remarkable Erika Loritz has helped us conduct street interviews with cartoneros. (I met Erika in October on...
by efeinblatt | Nov 17, 2007 | argentina
We passed by Tomas Benasso’s workshop a few days ago to gaze at the finished hotpress and go over some of the minor kinks that he’s going to work out during the next 2 weeks. It’s a mighty beast of a machine and a tangible measure of one of the...
by efeinblatt | Oct 26, 2007 | argentina
There have been more than a few unsettling moments during the past 3 1/2 months. Most of them have to do with the recognition that we have round-trip tickets and will be leaving here, that we will be alright. But the people we work with and have grown so close to...
by efeinblatt | Oct 22, 2007 | argentina, cartoneros
Every Sunday night in the Bronx, before going to sleep, I take a few bags of separated garbage that have been accumulating during the week and put them down on the sidewalk in front of my apartment – plastic, glass, cardboard. These bags are picked up sometime...
by efeinblatt | Oct 10, 2007 | argentina, cooperatives, technology
Yesterday, accompanied by Rhiannon, our amazing friend and translator, we visited the Cooperativa de trabajo “19 de diciembre.” We learned about this ‘recuperated’ metallurgic factory shortly after arriving in BA, and it’s name kept...
by efeinblatt | Sep 25, 2007 | argentina, cartoneros
Bajo Flores is one of five sorting centers or ‘green points’ that figure prominently in BA’s Zero Garbage Law plans. We’ll speak in detail about the significance of these centers in a subsequent post, but mention Bajo Flores here because it is...
by efeinblatt | Sep 3, 2007 | argentina, partners
Shortly after arriving in Buenos Aires two months ago we met up with Dante Munoz and Carlos Levinton. They have tutored us in the politics of waste and the re-purposing of waste (as well as ceviche and milongas), and we have met with them at least once a week in the...
