In Puerto Guzmán, deep in Colombia's Putumayo region, two problems are colliding. Surging deforestation is degrading soil and worsening floods and droughts. At the same time, plastic waste from packaged goods is building up fast in communities that have little or no waste collection service, contaminating food chains and water supplies.
Through the ITL Sustainable Amazon Communities project, Christian Aid and partner Corporación BIORED are trialling a different model: one that turns rubbish into income, restores degraded land, and puts indigenous and rural communities in charge of running it themselves.
From plastic waste to plastic wood
The project's centrepiece is a solar-powered, community-run recycling plant that shreds and moulds plastic waste into plastic wood, a durable, waterproof alternative to timber that can be sold to furniture and construction buyers.
The first phase aimed to set up five communal recycling points. Communities set up eight. Families, schools, shops and even local government offices got involved in collecting and separating waste. The recycling plant processed 14,609 kg of usable materials between April, May and mid-June.
We used to organize community clean-up days, but the plastic just kept coming back. We didn't know what to do with it all… Now families understand that recycling has value. And in schools, kids get excited to exchange plastic for sports or cultural supplies.
Now in its second phase, the plant is moving from a backup generator onto full solar power. Homes and schools are being incentivised through a voucher system - swapping separated plastic for credit they can spend in local shops or exchange for sports and arts supplies. The link between recycling and everyday services is already visible: materials collected through the scheme are helping fund the repair of a school's drinking water treatment plant, turning household recycling into a very direct community benefit.
Evidence-based advocacy
Alongside the collection work, the project has begun a microplastics study, sampling river water at three points around Puerto Guzmán to measure how much plastic pollution is actually reaching the water people rely on. The aim is to build a solid evidence base that local and departmental environmental authorities can't easily ignore, turning what communities already know from experience into data that can support formal advocacy for better waste policy.
Clean energy
Clean energy is doing more than running the recycling plant. New solar installations are bringing irrigation to indigenous communities' crops, helping harvests hold up through erratic rainfall and improving food security. Communities are being trained to manage and maintain the systems themselves, with the goal of full local ownership over time.
Restoring the land through cocoa
That reliable water supply matters most for the project's agroforestry work, which combines crops and trees to restore deforested land and give indigenous communities income alternatives to clearing forest for farmland. Solar-powered irrigation helps these newly planted crops establish and survive the dry spells that might otherwise undermine them.
Cocoa is central to this. This year, 60 people (70% of whom are women) completed training in cocoa transformation and derivatives with the national training agency SENA. The impact was measurable: a quality test on the beans showed clear improvements in fermentation and drying compared with previous seasons, a first step toward the kind of quality premiums that better-connected markets pay for. One group, the Eco agro-environmental Association, has already grown its product range from a single table chocolate to seven items, including artisanal soap, wine and energy bars.
To help communities picture what's possible, representatives from all four project communities travelled to Antioquia to visit two established cocoa enterprises, learning first-hand how export-quality certification and processing work in practice. They came back with concrete plans to replicate what they'd seen.
Women leading on monitoring and advocacy
Women are also being trained and equipped as environmental monitors, pairing their own knowledge of the land with new technical tools to track climate impacts and biodiversity - data that is beginning to feed into local advocacy for stronger environmental protections. It hasn't been entirely smooth. The monitoring app initially saw slow uptake = patchy phone signal, no power to charge devices, and unfamiliarity with the technology all got in the way. The team adapted quickly: adding WhatsApp support groups for troubleshooting, introducing an offline app as a backup, and handing out paper field notebooks for anyone who preferred them. Records picked up sharply once these changes were in place
Building toward independence
The project has a deliberate two-year horizon: by the time this phase of funding ends, the recycling plant is expected to be breaking even, covering its own running costs from the sale of plastic wood. BIORED will keep working alongside the community team for a further three to five years after that, gradually withdrawing support as local staff build the confidence and experience to run the plant fully on their own - the aim being not just a successful pilot, but a lasting, community-owned enterprise.