online souvenir shop where you can symbolically “buy” the garbage abandoned on the island.

Background: The island of Culebra, located to the east of Puerto Rico, is home to three of the most beautiful beaches in the world. This small island is only 7 miles long, but attracts more than 600,000 visitors each year, generating more trash than the island can handle. Sadly, the landfill is full to capacity. Culebra has one landfill that connects with Tamarindo Beach and the Cayo Luis Peña Nature Reserve. This landfill is not enough. It is an enormous mountain of garbage, full to capacity. Most of the plastic trash exposed, ends in the sea. Biomedical waste, scrap, livestock, and leachate need an adequate collection system to prevent them from gaining access to the sea. Culebra depends on a proper solid waste management system to keep it clean and an aggressive recycling program to prevent recyclable material from continuing to be deposited in the landfill. This way we can help protect and conserve the coasts and coral reefs of our small island.

Insights: The key insight is knowing that everyone who has ever been to Culebra, inevitably has fallen in love with its beauty. In what way to tap on that feeling, and reach these people, wherever they might be, and recruit them into the clean-up effort?

Solution: To solve the problem, we created an online souvenir shop where you can symbolically “buy” the garbage abandoned on the island; in other words, you would be paying for the removal of the junk. Note that your contribution will be used to revamp Culebra’s obsolete recycling program, and move trash and toxic material out of Culebra’s overflowing landfill.