EcoMayto: Mexico

The Conciencia Plástica (Plastic Conscience) project is aimed at collecting plastic waste from critical turtle habitat during shoreline cleanup and transforming it into everyday use products. Plastic collection is done through the use of special designed containers located in strategic points of neighboring towns and is assisted by beach and road cleaning campaigns. Cleanup efforts primarily occur along the beach of Mayto, where sea turtle protection work takes place.

The program starts as a strategy to minimize contamination effects in the Pacific Ocean, where thousands of species of fish, bird, marine mammals and reptiles suffer as a consequence to the immense ecological damage generated by plastic pollution. The goal of this project is to address the problem from its origin and create awareness and education in the villages located within the region, as well as creating a new source of income for the parties involved, transforming plastic wastes into valuable products.

Project Updates

July 2022

Campamento Tortuguero Mayto works to address plastic pollution in their local communities on Mexico’s Pacific coast by providing local collection containers. Previously, people would dispose of plastic by burning it along with their garden waste, adding toxins to both the environment and air. The collection containers have provided local communities with an alternative disposal solution. With 29 containers currently deployed, they have collected 411 kg of plastic (~900 lbs) in the last 6 months, benefiting 250 people.

The plastic collected in these containers is brought to transported to the collection and management center, located at the Centro de Educación Ambiental de Mayto (CEAM). Plastic is manually separated according to plastic recycling number and color. Using the thermo-molding technique, the plastic is shredded into small pieces and directly recycled to create kids chairs, roof tiles, bowls, and other products. Recent efforts to create recycled goods have been halted due to electrical issues but they are hoping to resume soon. In the meantime, they are continuing their plastic collection and compaction, beach and town clean ups, and environmental education workshops with volunteers and students. They have also been working together with active members of the plastic transformation community in different states in Mexico. One example of this is their partnership with SuuT KuXtal, with whom they have designed and created a plastic inclusion mold to create a turtle that can be sold as a souvenir to tourists and students.