Skoll Entrepreneur(s): Albina Ruiz
Award Year: 2006
Focus Area(s) Addressed: Water and Sanitation

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DESCRIPTION:

Albina Ruiz started worrying about health and environmental problems caused by garbage in Peru when she was an industrial engineer student. Twenty years ago, she came up with an idea for local enterprises to collect and process garbage: charging affordable fees, reducing waste volume in municipal landfills and generating more income by separating recyclables, spinning off additional microenterprises to produce compost and other marketable by-products. After 15 years of promoting her concept while working as a consultant to cities, industrial firms and various international development projects, she founded Ciudad Saludable in 2001.

IMPACT AS OF JAN. 2013:

• Establishing waste management systems that are more dependable and less expensive than those provided by municipal governments, Ciudad Saludable has organized over 1,500 waste collectors, creating employment and improving health and living conditions for over 6 million people living in rural and poor urban regions in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and India.
• Ciudad Saludable was instrumental in the creation of the first law in Peru (as well as Latin America) to regulate the activities of waste recyclers.
• Ciudad Saludable has also established two other organizations: Peru Waste Innovation, a consulting firm specializing in solid waste management; and Healthy Cities International (New York), which is in charge of replicating Ciudad Saludable’s model around the world.