Plastic collectors, Costa Maya

More than 40% of the Mexican population still live in poverty. Around 33 million workers are employed informally without any social security. Wealth is also distributed extremely unevenly among the country’s parts and population groups. While the north and center of the country are home to a relatively large number of companies that produce at world market level, and the metropolitan area of Mexico City in particular generates a large share of the gross domestic product, the south is considerably weaker economically. This is also where most of the indigenous population lives, and they are still economically, socially and structurally marginalized.
In the past 20 years, coastal pollution in southern Mexico has also increased dramatically. There is no functioning waste management system or recycling culture.
The fragile ecosystem of the Costa Maya, consisting of mangroves, sandy beaches and the Mesoamerican barrier reef is heavily affected by human waste. Plastic waste washes up on the beaches daily, severely impacting flora and fauna. Many fish and other marine life regularly become entangled in the plastic debris and die.
At the same time, overfishing of the oceans is contributing to a diminishing income for fishermen in the region. Finding solutions to these problems is the core of the project.

Fishers and coastal residents on the Costa Maya

The goal of the project is on the one hand to reduce plastic waste in the ocean and in the landscape and at the same time to generate income opportunities for fishers and coastal residents in the region. For this social and environmentally friendly approach, our project partner Tide Ocean 2022 was awarded the Swiss Ethics Award.

For every kilo of plastic collected, they receive a fair payment. This plastic is then sorted, cleaned and processed. By means of a special treatment process, valuable raw material is recovered. This treatment process produces up to 80% less CO2 than the production of new plastic.

A positive side effect is also the fight against dengue fever. This is because the mountains of plastic waste on the beaches have become breeding grounds for the virus-carrying mosquitoes, which find ideal conditions for lively reproduction in the pools of water that collect in the plastic waste.

In order to bring about a long-term change, however, it is also of great importance to create an awareness for recycling and waste avoidance among the population; this is done through training and educational courses in schools.

The project is complemented by the integration of an already existing program for the protection of sea turtles, which have been massively threatened by pollution in their habitat in recent decades.

With your help we want to build up the infrastructure and the organisation on site together with local partners. Among other things, a warehouse must be built and equipped to recycle the collected plastic.