Support Boracay's Glass Recycling Initiative

Hey Friends! Here's my short story:

I was stuck in the Philippines with an expired passport during the 2019 Pandemic. A two week vacation turned into a total life reset and career change. I changed from a high school educator to an athletic nutritionist, professional diver, and the biggest change of all - a co-founder of a sustainable project called No Space 4 Waste. My co-founder, Wynken Gelito, and I both reside in Boracay Island where a small island of just 3 square miles generates a total of 8 tons of trash per day.

The idea came to be in 2022 when we realized that this surmounting pile of trash on the sidewalk was affecting our island paradise. The problem was too big to be ignored with 8 tons of trash being piled up everyday and about 20% of that being recyclable. With constant demolition and new construction projects popping up regularly we saw an opportunity to create a circular economy. With our innovation we plan to pulverize and crush the glass waste and leverage that into construction materials. We give a new purpose to discarded glass and this helps reduces the total volume of the landfill in Malay. In doing so, we are saving the beautiful areas in our island. We want to preserve our paradise because there is no space for waste.

After patiently waiting for deliberations, deliveries, and confirmations our glass recycling team is crushing it (literally)! We are crushing glass liquor bottles into variations of ready-to-mix aggregates for different opportunities like pavers, panels, and blocks. We are extremely thankful for AccessLine Trading for letting us smash glass bottles out of their garage.

To best serve the island, the team will be leasing out a plot of land tucked away from the main crowds to safely conduct operations. Thanks to fellow freediver, Architect Justine Ropero, for designing the architectural plans of our building proposal!

We are operating out of a garage currently but here is our proposed layout for our future development:

The fundraising goal is part of a bigger step of the whole project but it would be a helpful start to support our goals. The funds received will go directly to:

Our products will run through a gauntlet of tests regarding the compressive and tensile strength of our bricks, and the quality of our sand aggregate.

This reduces residual waste during processing and allows further customizable options for aggregate mix.

Solar power would not only be cleaner energy but also cheaper since the commercial utility rates are extremely high on the island thus REDUCING COSTS for the production.

Putting the right people in the right safe places with the right pay to maximize our crushing and pulverizing capability. We will give local residents a fair wage (in the Philippines the average for a blue-collard worker is currently 300 USD per month).

For those that would rather look at info-graphics here you are:

This is Wynken Gelito! Co-founder and CEO of this project and we're both excited to show you all what we have gone through the past year in preparation:

We have 1 vibrating table to compact the glass sand and cement mix for our sustainable products!

We have 1 glass crusher for our initial tests with our CFO Wilbec Gelito and wife, Myleen Gelito. Ready to put the machine to the test!

Here's BEFORE crushing:

Here's AFTER crushing:

Thank you for these glass contributions from our fellow Aklanons - Brendan Green and Jomar Caseres of Destilaria Barako based in Malay, Aklan.

To save costs, we are manually sifting crushed glass into two difference sizes:

Unsifted glass particles:

The bigger variations are safe to touch - no sharp edges. Like mini diamonds:

The smaller variations are like salt. This is the fine mix:

We are under the guidance of a sustainable structural engineer, Engineer Ernest J. Cruz, for formulating the best mix for our products.

Here we are mixing a cement binder to our fine glass mix:

With your continued support we will be able to do more! Thanks to web designer and fellow freedive instructor, Tom Measures, we will give you a complete catalogue of our sustainable products! Stay tuned!