La Joyita prison was notorious for its squalor but a recycling scheme has helped rehabilitate inmates and eased gang fights.

La Joyita prison, just outside Panama City, was notorious for being filthy, overcrowded and dangerous. It was known as the “stomach of the beast” for those confined within its walls. “We literally lived on top of rubbish,” says Franklin Ayón.

“It was everywhere – in the corners, in the corridors,” says Ayón, who was imprisoned for drug trafficking in 2012. “We had to sit with a towel over our head to eat, just so the flies wouldn’t land on the food.”

Ayón, an agronomist by profession, came up with a plan. In 2014, he designed a recycling scheme that he named EcoSólidos: prisoners at La Joyita, one of the country’s largest prisons, would collect, separate, recycle and sell waste. And their work would earn them reduced sentences.

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