The Realim organization, led by Cristóbal Meriño, goes to markets to select vegetables that have been thrown away but can have a second life: they serve as food for cows, horses and goats. So far they have saved nearly 600 tons of organic surplus.
It was September 2019 and Christopher Merino (28) decided to walk around Tiltil for entertainment. He took his bike and started pedaling towards an area called Rincón de los Valles.
As he walked down the road, what his eyes saw was heartbreaking. The landscape was almost desert and there were corpses of animals everywhere. Arriving at a place where there were a few houses, he observed that a tanker was going to deliver water to the families. The drought had been present for years, some people said in Meriño.
“If they didn’t have water for them, how could they get water or food for their animals,” he told La Tercera.
From the top of a hill, the young man looked down: “It was full of stones and a few animals, but nothing to eat” . Suddenly goats appeared trying to eat something in the dirt and he remembered that he had kept banana and apple peels in his backpack. He gave it to them, thinking it might serve them. The goats started fighting for food.
At that moment, Meriño felt that something had changed in him and a question could not be erased from his mind: “What would happen if I took all the organic waste left over from the fairs and brought it to these animals?” . He quickly organized himself to make this idea a reality. The goal was clear: to be a solution for these people and their animals.
Thus was born the Fundación Realim Chile, a non-profit organization whose objective, just as the commercial engineer once dreamed of, is to recover the organic waste that are in fairs or markets and be able to give them a second life, so that they can be used as food animals in drought-affected areas. These are fruits or vegetables that are no longer fit for human consumption and will not be purchased by consumers.
Nearly four years after its creation, the organization has managed to recover nearly 600 tons of organic surplus which has provided cows, horses and goats to families of breeders. With this they promoted a circular economy and also provided economic and social support to the inhabitants of certain communes suffering from water shortage.
the way to the kingdom
During this bike ride in the Rincón de los Valles area, Meriño assured one of the locals that he would be back soon with vegetables for the animals. “Impossible, you don’t come,” they replied.
The following days, he went to a fair where he used to go and merchants offered him vegetables that would not sell. Accompanied by a friend, he came to Tiltil with crates full of food for the animals, as he had promised.
“That’s how we started. The following week I told someone else about it and there were already three of us, but later it increased. At one point we were 10 cars in a caravan” Merino said.
The beginnings of the collection of organic waste took place in the free fairs of the capital, with friends from Meriño who joined as volunteers. But carrying out the work of Realim was not easy, because at the beginning the sales engineer had to face various prejudices. “A lot of people have asked me that I work with garbage” said.
Then came the social outbreak and the pandemic, this last period being the hardest of their journey because they could no longer go out to help. The scenario was also complicated by Realim’s financing, given all that the operation entailed. Among those who participated in the collection, they organized and collected money, even if it was for the gasoline of the cars that they had to go, but they did not always have it.
“It was like a dream you were chasing. He also felt irresponsible leaving these animals without food.” Explain.
Gradually, the support of some municipalities that believed in the initiative appeared, such as San Jose de Maipo , Licence And pain , municipalities affected by the lack of water in some of their sectors. Realim currently maintains agreements with each of them. They were also able to start picking vegetables in the Lo Valledor Market which is currently its main source of organic surpluses.
In 2021, an unexpected surprise happened to Realim: they received the National Prize for Social Development for Chile, from the Camiseteados Foundation. . “The beautiful thing is that you don’t apply, but people do. We won it and we had no idea,” recalls Meriño.
At the same time, the collaboration with the Consortium Santa Marta has allowed them to go a step further, since they now have a fixed truck with which they can collect around 12 tonnes of organic waste per week. This allowed them to increase the relief burden on families.
“There are more than 580 tonnes that we have rescued in just the year and a half that we have been with the truck. That, added to what we have collected before, must be over 600 tonnes of organic waste” says the director of Realim.
How organic waste for animals is collected
The food that is received by the organization are not suitable for human consumption , because their marketing time has passed and some of them have ended up on the soil of Lo Valledor. However, they must meet certain requirements: They don’t have to be broken down, nor can you select ones that are spicy, citrusy, or come with plastic. Some of the most picked vegetables are beets, broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce leaves.
“If there are things in very good condition, we assemble them, store them and deliver them in boxes to the same breeders,” explains Merino.
Every Thursday, Realim volunteers meet at 8 a.m. in Lo Valledor to start selecting foods from the source. They receive the necessary equipment, snacks and instructions on what to select and what not.
“When the container is thrown into the truck, the volunteer is on top and separates what is organic from what is not, such as plastic or wood. Waste that is not useful is left in another landfill that is below” said the business engineer.
Once this task is completed, the volunteers get off the truck and start loading other containers with the selected vegetables. Then they go to the Consorcio Santa Marta to weigh and determine the tons of organic matter that has been collected during the day. The last step is to go to the delivery commune, where the volunteers see how the animals receive their vegetables.
“It’s the most rewarding and rewarding experience. Animals run when they see the truck because they know it will arrive every Thursday afternoon.” Merino explains. In the Laguna de Aculeo sector, in Paine, many animals have been abandoned by their owners, they continue to breed and remain adrift, so Realim tries to feed them every week.
In the future, Meriño dreams of being able to add another collection day and possibly take the initiative back to Tiltil, where his motivation was born. Another wish is to have more support from more institutions, because “there are still many organic surpluses that are being lost” in other parts of the country.
“Today the most viable solution for organic waste is thought to be compost, but I think you have to think of it first as being for people and animals. There isn’t the number food banks to be able to store as much, but there is the possibility of delivering part of it to the animals. Today, we are the only ones to do this in this quantity of tonnes, “he concludes.
Source: Latercera
I am David Jack and I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years. As an experienced journalist, I specialize in covering sports news with a focus on golf. My articles have been published by some of the most respected publications in the world including The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
