Thursday, April 15, 2010

One Man's Trash Another Man's Gold





Although none of us are making millions we have found a way to employ a local village, clean up some trash, and not use plastic bags on our tours. The new project we started for our clients is giving them each a bag of trash. I know what your thinking is that if you pay over a $1000's for a tour and the first thing you get when you get of the plane is a bag of trash you will probably be calling your lawyer and writing negative comments about us on TripAdvisor. But if you make what one man called trash into a stylish peice of fashion then you will probably be asking me where the nearest shoe store is to buy some shoes that match your fancy new bags.

Did you know that US households dispose of nearly one hundred billion plastic bags annually. If we reduce this by two bags per week each person would throw away 100 less bags a year. If we tied all of these bags together handle to handle these plastic bags would make a rope long enough to wrap around the earth more than 126 times (The Green Book)

Costa Rican Resource has developed a relationship with the village of Sitio de Mata where we have been bringing clients to experience the culture of Costa Rica. The families at Sitio de Mata are some of the nicest people you can imagine. They entertain tourist as a way of making a living. In the last few months I told Fressy I did not want our clients using plastic bags anymore and if she could help me invent bag that the clients could use while they are here. Sure enough Fressy who is the lady that does not have the word trash in her vocabulary came up with the fancy looking back you see in the pictures. This bag is made of different products that if you come to Costa Rica for a week you will surely recognize. Some of the more common bags that are part of the bags are coffee. Different plastic bags that where at one point trash for people are now collected and then sewn together to make a super stylish and bag that I guarantee you will get comments on during and after your stay in Costa Rica.

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