|
Necessity -- and scarcity
-- make Cubans masters of recycling
By Doreen Hemlock. Havana
Bureau, Posted January 11 2007. Sun-sentinel.com.
HAVANA, Cuba - Ariel Rodriguez makes new
keys from old ones. He shapes them on a
1953 key-copying machine that he bought
broken and fixed with parts from a grain
mill. He shines them on a key polisher he
rebuilt with a washing-machine motor.
Next to him at a government-run repair
center, Raul Leiva fixes eyeglasses from
old frames.
Faced with chronic shortages, meager salaries
and the United States' economic embargo,
Cubans have mastered the art of recycling.
The socialist government promotes the practice
as a way to save the planet. But for most
Cubans, it's more about saving themselves.
"Cave men figured out how to cook
with fire. We invent ways to get by,"
said Rodriguez, 34, who buys old keys mostly
from struggling retirees who scavenge their
neighborhoods looking for extras to sell.
"It's a question of survival."
Just about everything in Cuba seems to
be re-used. Coffee grounds from the morning
brew become fertilizer in gardens. A plastic
CD cover doubles as a picture frame. And
the cardboard centers from toilet paper
rolls serve as hair rollers for women.
Stop at a food stand, and the drinking
glasses are cut down Havana Club rum bottles.
Buy dessert at a bakery, and flan pudding
comes in the base of a soda can. String
beans at the farmers market are tied together
with a scrap of cloth from old pants.
Fernando Alberto Delgado makes his living
refilling disposable lighters, charging
clients a fraction of what it would cost
for new ones. He injects the lighter fluid
using an old aerosol can that once held
insecticide.
"Everyone buys from me, the young
and old. It's cheaper for them," said
Delgado, 37, a plumber who claims to make
more money in the lighter-refill business.
Cuba's socialist government long has extolled
the value of recycling. In 1961, Ernesto
"Che" Guevara led a state company
to recoup metals and other materials from
waste. The objective: to save on imports,
boost exports, expand industry and create
jobs.
But recycling soared in the 1990s by necessity
after the collapse of the Soviet Union and
the end of Soviet subsidies. At the depth
of the post-Soviet crisis, some Cubans made
stew from the skins of plantains and "steaks"
from grapefruit rinds. To this day, plastic
bags are routinely washed and hung out to
dry.
Quite literally, recycling on this Caribbean
island has become an art.
Craftsmen fashion coconuts into decorative
boats and cigar labels into coasters for
sale to tourists with foreign currency.
A popular souvenir in Havana is a faux-camera:
A wooden frame is covered with aluminum
from cans. A viewer is formed from a pull-top
tab. Press a scrap metal lever, and out
pops a smiley face, made from a plastic
bottle cap.
Barbaro Bernardo Diaz Osuna, 35, incorporates
Cuban newspapers into his colorful, acrylic
paintings, so tourists can remember when
they visited. He also uses labels from Bucanero
beer and Havana Club rum in collages to
identify his works as Cuban.
"Newspapers long have been resources
for art. The Dada movement used them, as
did Cubists and Picasso in his collages,"
the self-taught artist said.
Cuba's cash-strapped government often touts
recycling as environmentalism. A recent
article in Communist Party newspaper Granma
urged paper recycling to save forests and
stem the spread of garbage dumps. Another
promoted the government's push to replace
old, energy-guzzling appliances with new,
mainly Chinese-made ones as a way to cut
oil consumption.
Unlike European and U.S. cities, Cuba has
few formal programs for recycling.
The United Nations has one in Pinar del
Rio province to encourage residents to separate
glass, plastics and other recyclables from
their garbage. But much of Cuba's push to
recycle goods comes from personal initiative,
such as neighbors picking up leftovers from
workplace lunchrooms to feed their pigs,
said Alberto D. Perez, a U.N. spokesman
in Havana.
In a nation where salaries average $15
a month, necessity motivates.
"Sure, I'd like to use fresh, new
supplies," said eyeglass repairman
Leiva, 69. "But used ones are cheaper,
and I can't charge too much to the people.
They can't afford it."
Doreen Hemlock can be reached at dhemlock@sun-sentinel.com.
| 
