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Eleno Ulloa endured ridicule, rejection, drug and alcohol addiction, and two deportations from the United States. Today, he is the breadwinner for his family and a sign of hope for many in Nayarit through his recycling business.
Paso de las Palmas, Mexico — Eleno Ulloa inherited an interest in recycling from his maternal grandmother. Together they scoured the garbage dumps in his hometown of Paso de las Palmas, Nayarit state. When he was five years old, a terrible accident struck Ulloa when he tried to retrieve a doll from the top of a garbage heap, unaware that a fire was burning inside. His cousin, who happened to hear his screams, found him, but suffered severe burns to his legs.
That incident didn’t deter him from digging through the trash heap for finds. “I showered her sister with toys, and one day I found this tall stuffed teddy bear,” Ulloa says, holding her hand about a meter off the ground.
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Eleno Ulloa separates recyclable plastics at a recycling company in Las Barras, Nayarit, one of Mexico’s least recycled states. (Photo: Maya Piedra, Global Press Mexico)
After suffering a language disorder that affected his ability to express himself fluently and being twice deported from the United States, Ulloa now runs one of the few recycling businesses in Nayarit, a state with one of the lowest recycling rates in Mexico. The paper reports that the company operates one of the following. A report from the Plastics Industry Association, an association that promotes the plastics industry.
It all started in 2018 when he drove his car through the city streets and announced he was buying plastic. “People thought I was crazy for going out collecting plastic,” he says. After making daily announcements for three months, he succeeded in getting people to pick up plastic items from the streets and sell them.
Mexico is one of Latin America’s largest importers of plastics, mainly from the United States and China, and these imports doubled between 2015 and 2021. This is partly due to a 2018 decision by China, historically one of the world’s largest destinations for solid waste. Banning the import of 24 types of solid waste, including plastics.
In 2019, Mexico recycled only 50% of the 4.5 million tons of plastic it produced that year.
Today, Ulloa’s company employs three people and collects about 4.5 tons of plastic a week from 40 towns and villages along the Nayarit coast, selling it to a recycling plant near Guadalajara.
María Guadalupe Duarte Godinez (left) and Demetrio Arechiga Alcantar sort recyclable plastics in front of their home in Ixtapa de la Concepción. Mr. Duarte and Mr. Arechiga set up two public containers in town to collect recyclable plastics for sale to the Eleno Ulloa recycling plant in Las Barras. (Photo: Maya Piedra, Global Press Journal)
But his path to get here wasn’t easy.
When Ulloa was 6 years old, she crossed the border into the United States in Tijuana with her mother and two siblings. His father, Mario Ulloa, was waiting for them in California, where they established a new home. After spending his four years there, his father moved the family to Oregon to give his children a better future. “The poverty we had, [in Mexico] It was really difficult,” says Mario Ulloa. “We were able to do it because we left.”
Eleno Ulloa said she also experienced bullying from her own family because of her speech impediment. While he was pursuing his secondary education in Oregon, the situation became unbearable. He says his teacher also teased him. “Not one of them reached out to me or said, ‘Hey!’ Don’t do that to Eleno!” he says. “They laughed. And the students had the courage to laugh, too, and it made me feel like I was the smallest person in the world.”
So one day after summer vacation, he decided to quit school. he was 16 years old.
Eleno Ulloa loads large bags of recyclable plastic onto a truck in Las Barras, Nayarit, Mexico. (Photo: Maya Piedra, Global Press Mexico)
When he was 20 years old, someone offered him a job selling drugs, which he accepted. “The money was appealing to me, but what was most appealing to me was that people wouldn’t make fun of you if you had money,” he says. It was around the time she had her first girlfriend and was surrounded by her friends.
Everything went well for two years until the police arrested me. The judge sentenced him to 16 months in prison.
While in prison, Ulloa began taking rehabilitation classes, which motivated him to speak. “I thought, ‘They’ll laugh at my stutter.'” Instead, his fellow prisoners and teachers encouraged him. “I made a lot of friends, but no one told me I stuttered. That’s where my life changed.”
When he completed his sentence, he had a way to stay in the United States, but he needed a sponsor. He thought the person was his brother, but when he refused, Ulloa was exiled.
Eleno Ulloa waits outside the home of someone who bought recyclable plastic in Ixtapa de la Concepción, Nayarit state. (Photo: Maya Piedra, Global Press Mexico)
When he came to Mexico at age 25, no one wanted to hire him. They called him “Nortenito” (“Little Man of the North”) and criticized him for his tattoos. As a result, after eight months of drugs and alcohol, Ulloa crossed the border back to the United States. Two years later, he was sent to prison again, this time for two years and seven months as an illegal alien and a habitual offender. With four months left to complete his sentence, Ulloa was deported again.
His return to Mexico presented the same difficulties. When he encountered problems assimilating into the town, Mr. Ulloa’s parents returned to Mexico with him, leaving their other children and nearly the entire extended family in the United States.
Ulloa eventually found work at a recycling plant in Paso de las Palmas. A year later he decided to start his own business. Now, he collects plastic from the streets of Nayarit, separates it, compresses it, and sells it.
Founded in 2018 in Las Barras, Nayarit, Eleno Ulloa’s recycling plant employs three people and packs and sells nearly 4.5 tons of plastic each week. (Photo: Maya Piedra, Global Press Mexico)
family finds hope for survival
It’s been five years since María Guadalupe Duarte Godinez and Demetrio Arechiga Alcantar started collecting plastic and selling it in Ulloa. “No one was collecting it. They threw it into streams and irrigation canals. Or they burned it,” Arechiga says. “Earlier, plastic meadows were seen bleaching in the sun.”
Arechiga said his interest in plastics was born one day when he realized he had no money and “I couldn’t even afford a gram of salt.” Ulloa arrived that day. He took the plastic they collected and paid them on the spot.
The couple then set up two plastic bins in town for people to throw away their plastic. They collect 100 to 150 kilograms (220 to 330 pounds) every 10 days.
Mexico is one of the largest importers of plastic in Latin America, with most of its imports coming from the United States and China. (Photo: Maya Piedra, Global Press Mexico)
Duarte said 12 people live in the community, and instead of burning the plastic as is customary, they called to set it aside and give it to her. “This helps keep farmland clean, which in turn keeps roads clean,” she says.
Belsain López, from Chiapas, tours the streets of Las Barras on a tricycle. He can collect up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of plastic in his day, which he always sells to Ulloa.
With the money, Lopez pays rent and buys food. He says it’s more profitable to collect plastic than to do farming. “Farm bosses, sometimes me too. [do] When I go to work, I’m told, “Please wait 5 days.” And then you have to wait until they pay you,” he says. “If you bring plastic, [Ulloa], he pays me on the spot. ” If López needs money, Ulloa will lend him money.
Ulloa has purchased two pieces of land for his business and manages all of his family’s expenses. But more than that, he said, he’s proud to have brought about a cultural shift in a region where people used to burn plastic waste or dump it in the streets and rivers of Nayarit.
This article was originally published by Global Press Journal. Global Press is an award-winning international news publication with more than 40 independent news outlets across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Teaser photo credit. Eleno Ulloa loads large bags of recyclable plastic onto a truck in Las Barras, Nayarit, Mexico. (Photo: Maya Piedra, Global Press Mexico)
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