Mexico’s
plastic industry has launched a counterattack against its detractors,
including legislators who voted in March to ban the use of
non-degradable plastic bags in all Mexico City stores.
Store owners in the capital face heavy fines and
prison sentences if, by mid 2010, they have failed to replace
polyethylene T-shirt bags and those available in rolls with ones made
from degradable materials.
The industry fears that, if the authorities in
Mexico are not persuaded otherwise, all the other 31 states in Mexico
will follow and ban bags and other type of plastic packaging as well.
But in a statement, emailed to members late Oct.
19, Mexico’s national plastic industries association, Anipac
(Asociación Nacional de Industrias del Plástico AC), announced the
launch of a national public relations campaign aimed at getting the law modified.
Anipac believes recycling would solve all the
problems caused by discarded plastic bags. It argues that in Mexico
only 1 percent of the 390,000 metric tonnes of plastic bags
produced in the country every year is recycled, and it criticizes the authorities for not enforcing laws on garbage separation.
Guillermo Salas, Anipac’s president, said early
this month that Teknopellets SA de CV, which claims to be Mexico’s
largest recycler of post-consumer and post-industrial low density
polyethylene, is importing waste material from Guatemala as there are
insufficient supplies available in Mexico.
“It’s incredible that a small country like Guatemala separates its rubbish and we in Mexico don’t,” Salas said.
Anipac is preparing a proposal for Mexico’s
environment and natural resources ministry Semarnat (Secretaría de
Medio Ambiente y Recursos
Naturales) that would see the country’s hundreds of thousands of
garbage collectors incorporated into a national garbage separation
initiative.
According to Anipac’s managing director, Alfredo
López Machorro, the city of San Luís Potosí, 250 miles southwest of
Mexico City, is the only large urban area in Mexico
where domestic garbage collection is carried out by a private contractor and where, consequently, the garbage is separated.
Anipac’s PR campaign will start Oct. 21 and run
through Jan. 16. In that time, Salas and other Anipac officials and
members plan to give interviews to dozens of
journalists from the print and electronic media.
Among the points they will cover, according to
Anipac, are that the plastic industry in Mexico is worth $25 billion
per year and employs 150,000 directly and 800,000 indirectly,
while a total of 3,600 companies have $1.4 billion invested in the sector.
Comments (1)
It is good to know that the Mexican Plastic
Association is working on a plan to counter the Bag Bans. While
commercial statistics may impress a few and the industries ministry may
be sympathetic to them there is something more the citizens would be
moved by to support plastics. From our experience I can say citizens
& local bodies want the trade and
industry using plastics to be a part of the solution. Awareness
campaigns against littering, education drives for segragation of waste
at source and bin culture on a mass scale
will be needed.Local bodies are not capable of effective social
communication generally, trade and industry can help with effective
campaigns that trigger response of citizens.
Working with citizens groups, NGOs as partners to bring change in solid
waste management and increasing recycling at local level could be a
worthwhile effort.
Source From: Baixongkemei