On Wednesday, June 23, AmaTierra hosted the official Turrubares county meeting of Plan PRESOL (Plan de Residuos Solidos, or Solid Waste Management Plan), presented by the Ministry of Education of Puriscal. Tara represented the AmaTierra Foundation and gave a brief presentation to participants about the recycling and enivornmental education projects of the Foundation. The group was all ears, especially after she thanked them for their bare feet, since we were in the yoga studio, after all!

25 local attendees from Turrubares' public and private sectors represented local government, businesses and civil society. Special guests included the Mayor of Turrubares, representatives from Turrubares High School and the new local cooperative COOPETOUR RUBARES. Puriscal's news station was there, too, filming the event and conducting interviews with participants and government officials.

The emphasis of the meeting was on creating a working group to support the municipality in its new legal mandate to implement a county-wide solid waste management program in accordance with Costa Rica's brand new law, GIRS (Gestion de Residuos Solidos, or Solid Waste Management), requiring all municipal governments to be responsible for creating and maintaining a fully functional waste management system. Plan PRESOL helps support the municipality and its local community in holding each county responsible for making this happen. Since the AmaTierra Foundation has worked tirelessly to promote a waste management program, including the initiation of a growing recycling project, we couldn't be happier that Costa Rican legislation is helping to make this goal a closer reality here in Turrubares.

Our next step is to facilitate a presentation to the Municipal Council by the Costa Rican organization Terra Nostra this Friday, June 25. Terra Nostra will present the ways in which municipal governments can implement their own recycling project as part of a larger waste management system to minimize solid waste in landfills and create a self-sustaining and lucrative program to handle recyclable materials. Fingers crossed the Municipal Council will be open to the idea, and the AmaTierra Foundation's long-term dream for a county-wide recycling project will get its wings and fly!

If you would like more information on the AmaTierra Foundation and how you can get involved, please visit our website, www.amatierra.com/amatierrafoundation.