Plastic ball bit

Here in Ollantaytambo, a stop along Peru Rail before Machu Pichu, the municipal street workers collect and store the PET bottles here while cleaning the streets.

 I asked some locals where this ball pit of plastic ends up and was told Cusco or Lima. There are many recycling transferstations around Cusco, but I believe the final market (where the plastics bottle manufature is) is in Lima.

 Below is a recycling transfer station in a town called Puycara. From what I understood with my rough spanish is that they buy PET at $0.006 a lb. Not much but, and this is a huge but, they are buying it. There is no way I could walk into a Far West Recycling depot in Portland with PET slung over my back and actually get money for it. I am sure many other cities in the US also do not have recyclers buying PET off scrappers.
So the price is low, but they are buying it from individuals (most have a truck or motor bike to haul bottles in). The fact that there is value to the PET gives folks the insentive to collect it and bring it here. It has nothing to do with the environment, it is purly an economical force driving recycling in the Sacred Valley.

 A giant mountain of PET. The lady under the yellow tarp is sorting the green from the clear.

Beware of gaurd dogs. This was the first time I regretted not getting a rabies shot before my trip.