We were lucky to catch up with Eliana Valdes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Eliana , thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My mission is to create my art and at the same time help reduce the environmental impact that we as humans have on our planet taking something that has been used and re-use it as many times as possible with the purpose of waste reduction.

The reason why my mission is so meaningful to me personally is because I am giving a second life to something that was considered dead and making it alive and useful once more.

Eliana , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I got into the industry by being frustrated at the fact that everyone is always worried about what are we going to do about our plastic waste but rarely hear about what happens to our glass. After doing some basic research I learned that only a small percentage of our glass waste is recycled. This motivated me to do some deeper, digging and thinking, as of what I could personally do to help with this big problem that we all have collectively.

Not only do I provide a recycling service and a glass reusing solution for restaurants, wineries homeowners, etc. but I also make beautiful glasses that make a wonderful home accessory for peoples kitchens, events, gatherings to drink beverages out of which essentially brings people together during meals or moments that folks can enjoy together. On top of the recycling aspect, I feel like my glasses can clink together the cheers of many moments.

I solve problems for clients mainly by taking care of their glass waste, but I also solve the problem of whether or not people are being environmentally forward with the options that they choose in their day to day life for their home accessories as far as drinking glasses go. Are the decisions that we are making in our day-to-day lives keeping the future of our next generations in mind? I feel like when someone purchases my glasses they can be at ease with the fact that their home accessories in the drinking department are environmentally conscious and have a second life.

What I am most proud of is the initial “Oh my goodness “ reaction that people have when they see my glasses for the first time and realize that something that they so frequently throw away could be turned into something so beautiful and functional. The fact that people are so surprised to see what we all think of as garbage turned into such a lovely thing is so mind-blowing to some and such a foreign concept to most people that there reaction and aww is what makes me most proud

What I most want potential clients to know about my brand is that it’s a very creative and easy solution to a product that we all use on a daily basis and could potentially and does, take up so much of our world space in a landfill that takes hundreds of thousands of years to break down. We can save ourselves the land fill space, to make not just glasses but so many other by-products of the extra glass that is not used for my glasses like my culett (broken down glass turned into a fine sand-ish powder) that can be used for countless repurposing.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think what most illustrates my resilience is people telling me for so long that this isn’t going to work (making art and beauty out of garbage) because people have been doing this and making glasses for centuries. After learning how to do this and realizing what a tedious long process it is to make one glass, I was hooked. Then, with time, I found other things I could make with that glass, such as candles or putting tops on them or making jars or other things with this repurposed bottle. Having so many people tell me it’s not gonna work and not giving up untik finally creating my vision and seeing the reaction of people look at my work , with the utmost respect is probably the best part of this journey. When others couldn’t see the vision that I had and told me it wouldn’t work and continuing until I saw it come into fruition is a really good feeling.

It has been so, so, so incredibly time and financially consuming, I don’t think anyone realizes the countless tears, sweat, muscle aches, dumpster diving, shut-downs, sleepless nights that have gone into this small dream slowly coming true and it’s not even there yet. But you know what they say, little by little. I ain’t giving up now.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

So this is a really interesting question to answer and the reason why I chose this question to answer is because all the capital and all the initial equipment or materials that I’ve needed and that are constantly needing to be renewed, are all funded on my own. the machinery is expensive. The sanding discs are expensive the time and gas. It takes for me to go collect all these bottles the time and gas it takes for me to go drop off the finished product is all at my own expense. The initial capital of my business has not even been fully finalized yet and considering the amount of time and money I’ve put into this, it may take many years to complete. I do understand that some businesses take years to see the results of, and I still haven’t seen the profit that I would like emerge from this long-term lifelong project. It would be great to get the help of stipends, donations, sponsorships or grants to continue growing to where I would like to be because this is something I’ve realized I couldn’t have done and can’t continue to do without the help and generosity of a community. After all, my initial goal is to have this grow to a point where everyone is involved so that we can continue to reduce our future waste and find ways to make functional beautiful things out of the garbage that we are creating for the world so this is not really just my project it’s something that I wish the whole world and large communities can be involved in.

Contact Info:

• Website: Trocaderomarket.com
• Instagram: @trocadero1903
• Facebook: Trocadero 1903

Image Credits
Sara Fabres