Smokey Mountain - SMP cooperative

We went to meet with the SMP cooperative right when I first arrived. This is the cooperative I know the best as we have been working together since my last visit and they are the furthest along in our program: their micro-finance loan just came through, we have in place new operational procedures, financial planning and guidelines, we discuss new job responsibilities, the new land they will acquire to set up their MRF.

For those of you who don't know what I'm doing here, you can visit the SPM web site listed above. We have funds from the Asian Development Bank for what they call "environmental remediation and poverty alleviation." In this case, we are setting up Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) where cooperatives buy, sort, classify and sell waste materials. So it's one loop in the recycling chain. This cooperative focuses on plastics and organic waste collected from the surrounding community but also from the city. With the proximity to China, a big importer of PET plastic, there's real added value that can come from sorting these plastics. We try and help them with better operational procedures but also better health and safety conditions.

Here is a picture from the meeting as well as a picture of Smokey Mountain. Grass has grown over it, as it has not been used as a dump in the past 10 years. The small tress you see by the side of the road were recently planted as part of a city-wide initiative. I will be planting some trees today with Anita (you see her all the way to the right in the meeting picture).

What most impressed me at this meeting was the level of structure to the meeting. Setting an agenda, assigning next steps, pretty basic things but it really makes all the difference because it's a professional approach that consultants use, and finally we are the counsel, they are the clients. We are here to help, they take final decisions and implement the program. It's not some kind of aid program where we sweep in and tell people how things should be done. You definitely sense the US work ethic here.

But what do you think of this bumper slogan???? You won't see that in the US!