Abstract:

Cities daily concentrate large volumes of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the food industry and other public spaces that can generate new forms of value for the bioeconomy, health care and the environment. There are processes such as the realization of various composts that are made in Mexico such as: biointensive compost, vermicompost, biocashi compost; these are made from organic waste used to produce food without agrochemicals. Since 2021, local actions and environmental education have been carried out in the Huerto Roma Verde (HRV), a non-profit civil association located in the Roma neighborhood of the Cuauhtemoc district in Mexico City., and since 2022 it has collaborated with the National Polytechnic Institute to provide environmental education workshops. Thirty-six training sessions were held on topics such as: environmental teaching criteria, living soils and their relationship with life and products, theory of the different composting systems, biodigesters, soil remineralization, safety and sanitary processes, recycling of urban waste, and the construction of their own compost bin. These workshops were held during the months of January to June 2022 and were attended by 150 people, workers and volunteers of the HRV and visitors who were mostly foreigners. The objective of the workshops was to provide the participants with accurate, understandable, sufficient and documented experiences and information on the Biointensive Method of Cultivation, composting and urban waste management, in order to teach them how to produce organic food; and to observe the attitudes and behaviors that people have towards proper waste management and compost production in their homes. The results show that the workshops, the activities carried out and the interest of the people for a change in the production of the food they consume, care for the environment, their health and their economy; can serve to improve and take sustainable actions, since having knowledge of the production of compost and family self-sufficiency cultivation encourages them to carry out an adequate management of urban waste in their homes and in the environments that surround them.

Keywords:

Environmental education, Composting and recycling workshops, Huerto Roma Verde, Mexico City.