There’s no curbside recycling for the twelve villages that make up the Hopi reservation. That’s mainly because of remoteness and sheer distance from potential buyers of recyclable materials. But, a brother and sister team are trying to change that.
Jack and Georgie Pongyesva are the founders of the nonprofit organization, RezCycling. It’s a grassroots push for tribal members and businesses to collect recyclable materials and put them aside for pick up by the siblings themselves.
Jack and Georgie store cardboard, paper, plastic and metal on their father’s land until they meet the 21 ton minimum required to sell it at market price. The business depends as much on proximity to material markets as it does to amounts of discarded recyclables...