More than 3 million bottles were collected in the “Plastic for Toys” campaign.

Santo Domingo—More than 3 million plastic bottles were collected this Saturday in the Dominican capital as part of an initiative of the Mayor’s Office of the National District to raise awareness about the protection of the environment, which, for the fourth year, compensated with toys the thousands of people who handed in these containers.

This edition considerably surpassed last year’s, when some 2.2 million bottles were collected, “highlighting the community’s commitment to environmental awareness,” said the Mayor’s Office of the National District in a press release.

Since the night before, thousands of people, primarily children, crowded the surroundings of the Municipal Palace to participate in the activity called ‘Plastics for Toys,’ in which the City Hall delivered 7,323 toys in exchange for the bottles.

The bottles collected during the event were delivered to the Botellas de Amor Foundation, which leads a strategy that transforms flexible plastic waste “into critical elements for the community’s wellbeing, such as housing, playgrounds, and urban furniture built with recycled plastic, the note added.

The foundation will use them to create benches and playground equipment for the city’s parks.

The amount of plastics collected this year “demonstrates our community’s growing commitment to the environment,” said Mayor Carolina Mejía.

“We are transforming plastic into smiles, but also into structures and furniture that benefit our city,” she stressed.