Integrated Waste Management/Environmental Education

On May 30, 2002, Cal/EPA, together with the Agency Secretary for the Mexican federal Secretariat of the Environment and natural Resources, the Mexican Secretariat of Public Education, the Baja California Directorate of Ecology, and the California Office of the Secretary for Education signed a 5-year agreement to develop, and provide K-12 environmental education training within the border region. This is the only U.S.-Mexico agreement that exists on the area of K-12 environmental education and training. The Border Affairs Unit will continue to work with Mexico’s education/environmental institutions in implementing this 5-year agreement.

Working with a group of professors and graduate students from the Autonomous University of Baja California, the Border Affairs Unit and the Integrated Waste Management Board (IWMB) conducted an in-depth characterization study of the El Cerro Centinela Tire Pile. This study represents an initial step in devising a bi-national abatement plan to prevent a potential tire fire that would impact both California and Baja California.

The Integrated Waste Management Board (IWMB) is responsible for implementing “Train-the-Trainer Program for K-12 Border Teachers”. This is an on-going environmental education partnership between the Border Affairs Unit and the Secretariat of Education for Baja California that focuses on capacity building for border teachers. Major accomplishments are as follows:

• Over 300 Mexican teachers were trained using the K-12 integrated waste management curriculum known as Closing the Loop.
• Nine lessons of a cross-media compendium containing border-specific lessons for K-9 children were developed. This curriculum as a whole consists of 17 classroom activities.
• At the request the Mayor of Tijuana, the IWMB provided technical assistance to the City of Tijuana in its efforts to site a new landfill.

Since 1997, the Border Affairs Unit in cooperation with the IWMB has coordinated and held one- and two-day recycling workshops for Baja California school teachers. To date, 2,000 teachers have been trained. The last workshop took place in March 2004. The Border Affairs Unit will continue to carry out one- or two-day workshops for border teachers using the Spanish/English curriculum being developed for border teachers.

Since 2000, the Border Affairs Unit has participated and will continue to participate in Baja California’s Expo-Environment (or ExpoAmbiente). This is an annual two-day event designed for K-12 schools. It typically draws more than 10,000 teachers and students as well as members from the public.

The Border Affairs Unit, in cooperation with the Los Angeles City Council, donated 1,400 surplus trash cans to 329 elementary schools in Tijuana, Tecate, and Mexicali, Baja California. The Border Affairs Unit will continue to identify and facilitate the transfer of needed equipment to Baja California schools and municipalities.

The Border Affairs Unit will expand environmental education efforts to include smog check technician training for the City of Mexicali utilizing the training materials that were developed during the implementation of the California-Mexico smog check agreement for the City of Tijuana.