Turning tyres into treasure in Mexico
story by: María Elena Alcántara Castro (rotary in mexico)
The Rotary Club of Chetumal worked with Furmex, an organisation founded by Rotarians in Mexico to support the country’s Rotary clubs, to hold a tyre recycling workshop to help people living in poverty learn to create useful products out of waste material and generate income.
The 2023 workshop included eight families in the town of Luis Echeverría Álvarez in the municipality of Othón P. Blanco in Quintana Roo state.
During the workshop’s 19 weeks (more than 380 hours), five women, three men, and additional family members were trained to convert used and discarded tyres into items such as flowerpots, vases, figures of birds and other animals, children’s games, and furniture. Participants were given the necessary equipment, tools, and supplies, including worktables and protective gear, to use their new skills for home-based businesses.
District 4195 Governor Jean Baptiste Manel, a member of the Chetumal club, spearheaded the project, which has had a positive impact on the local economy and the environment. His creativity is reflected in his career as an architect of hospitals and residential homes. He is originally from Senegal and retired from the Mexican Social Security Institute. He provided some more details about the project and its results.
Complicated local infrastructure means that tyres are a common waste product which can be used and recycled as a raw material.
How did the idea of this project arise?
I deal with waste issues a lot, and I see that it is very complicated for municipalities to have infrastructure that allows them to process items such as tyres. One day I came across an artisan who works with tyres as a raw material, and I started buying furniture, flowerpots, and other products from him. I noticed that they are very durable.
Then in 2019, the initiative Heart 2 Heart, an alliance of clubs and districts in Mexico and the U.S., invited clubs to participate in a funding opportunity called 100 in 100, and our club submitted a project proposal.
Thus arose the idea for a project that would reuse a large number of tyres and at the same time create family income. We presented our proposal and won the support of 150,000 pesos, about US$9,000, from Heart 2 Heart and Furmex.
Unfortunately, the pandemic arrived, and we had to stop until 2023, when we managed to reactivate this idea.
Participants in the workshop received tools and training to safely and effectively.
How did the community workshop come about?
We spoke with an artisan who works wonders with tyres, and we designed the teaching plan. We decided the workshop would run for 16 weeks, Monday to Friday from 5pm to 8pm. We designed modules for flowerpots, soap holders, animal figures, children’s games, and furniture. After that, we spent three weeks setting up the workshop spaces in each of the eight students’ homes.
We gave participants worktables, a toolkit, and supplies on the condition that they would completely finish the workshop. Initially 10 people signed up, but along the way two students dropped out, one due to illness and another due to the long distance to travel to the workshop.
The people in the training program are from Luis Echeverría, a community located half an hour from Chetumal. We had previously worked on two water purification plant projects there; the residents have health problems from consuming unfiltered hard water. From the group that manages the water plants, we invited unemployed people to take the tyre recycling workshop.
This support was not only training, but also in-kind?
Yes, the participants now have their tools. We give them the supplies they need such as nails, screws, knives, paints, etc. The raw materials are free, and the electrical energy they use is minimal when working with rechargeable drills and compressors to paint.
The tyres are often transformed into striking pieces of furniture, such as chairs and foot stools.
“We need to take climate-friendly actions on an individual and a club level. We have to act together.”
Since the workshop concluded, has your club carried out any follow-up?
Yes, recently the immediate past governor of District 4195, Elia Fabiola Zavala Díaz, attended the workshops where people produce and sell items created from waste tyres. She also visited a center for minor offenders and proposed the idea of taking the workshop to them so that they could learn a trade.
The closing of the workshop took place in the courtyards of the state government palace, where the workshop participants exhibited more than 200 products for a week. We also approached the state government to receive additional support. The Ministry of Economy communicated with us, and several ideas were generated:
- Create a trademark in the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property. (We are acquiring one for the people’s business.)
- Create a cooperative or have families create individual microenterprises (the second option is the most viable).
- Obtain government support such as microcredit payments.
- Have spaces to exhibit and sell the crafts at events held by the government.
- Have modules for sale at the Mayan train stations.
- Find a way to reach agreements with transporters to transfer merchandise and raw materials.
Are there plans to repeat the workshop in other communities?
Yes, there are plans to hold another one next year. Meanwhile, there is another effort taking place to set up a student centre in a palapa (an open-sided structure with a thatched roof) for young people from the countryside.
There are eight tables on loan and enough space for the tyres. I also know that one of the workshop participants who graduated in this year’s class is teaching the course to other young people in his area.
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