Recycling is a big business in Yucatan

The recycling industry generates revenues of more than $250 million pesos per year in Yucatan, according to officials….

MERIDA – In Merida alone, approximately 800,000 tons of solid waste are generated per day, so men and women on their tricycles or walking stalk the city checking the garbage, looking for something to sell before the sanitation service takes it away.

Lorenzo Ceh, 56, mentions that he was fired a few months ago, so it has been difficult for him to find a job again, so he had no choice but to go out and look for waste that he can sell. “My children are already grown and I only support my wife, but sometimes I help with the expenses of my grandchildren, because my son stopped working,” he says.

The increase in this activity is because the recycling industry has registered one of the fastest growing rates in the state. During the last years it has consolidated an annual increase of 23% of value and productivity, according to state authorities.

Eduardo Batllori Sampedro, head of the Department of Urban Development and Environment (Seduma), mentioned that they have already identified 195 economic units or businesses dedicated to the recycling of products such as plastics, metals, glass and aluminum, in addition to paper, among others.

He explained that these 195 units generate a level of productivity higher than $225 million pesos, and this year it is expected to reach $284 million pesos.

In Mexico about 200 thousand companies are engaged in the collection and recycling of solid waste, however, only 2,700 of them operate formally in accordance with the National Institute of Recyclers AC (Inare)

The sector estimates that at least two million families depend on these activities, which range from garbage pickers, to buyers of metals and plastics, to transporters. However, the first part of the chain operates in informality, so its incorporation into the formal economy is sought.

In the country, only 11 percent of the waste generated is recycled, and the industry imports around $100,000 pesos a year. But the fiscal rules of the last five years forced 40 percent of the companies to disappear, says Inare.

Source: www.laverdadnoticias.com