More than 148 thousand tons per year of bottles, fried food bags, food containers, disposable utensils, and many other wastes, arrive massively in Mexican seas through 12 rivers.
These mouths represent the most critical plastic pollution points for the oceans in Mexico, according to analyses carried out by engineer Alethia Vázquez Morilla, an academic at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM).
Through the Ruíz River, which is the mouth of the Rio Grande de Santiago, in the state of Nayarit, approximately 77,592 tons of plastics reach the sea each year in the Mexican Pacific. In this area, another 3,275 tons of the San Pedro River adhere.
The Pánuco and Guayalejo River, which forms part of the Moctezuma and Tula river basin, where wastewater drains from Mexico City, contributes 26,719 tons of plastic waste to the Gulf of Mexico, between the coasts of Tamaulipas and Veracruz.
Through the Colorado River, in Baja California, 9,950 tons of plastics reach the sea; from the Suchiate River, in Chiapas, 8,731; the Verde River, which forms part of the Atoyac River drainage system, in Oaxaca, 5,297 tons and the one from the Coatzacoalcos River, in Veracruz, 4,846.
The Gulf conglomerate, made up of the Tuxpan, Cazones, Nautla, Actopan and La Antigua rivers, all in Veracruz, contributes 12,307 tons of waste to the sea each year, according to preliminary results.
These data were presented as base information for the National Inventory of Sources of Plastic Pollution, which is part of the National Plan of Action on Marine Waste and Plastic Pollution (PlanRemar), a joint project between the United Nations (UN) and the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat).
The program was launched on April 27. It seeks to generate science-based information that translates into public policies to prevent and mitigate the impact of plastics on the oceans, explained Izarelly Rosillo, a specialist in environmental law and general coordinator of the project.
The also academic from the Autonomous University of Querétaro explained that, within the framework of international cooperation, Semarnat requested help from the UN for the development of this ambitious plan.
The project, he said, has as its background the Regional Seas Program launched by the UN since 1974, with the objective of collecting information on marine and coastal ecosystems.
In addition, in 2012, the Global Alliance on Marine Litter was launched, where signatory countries shared knowledge and experiences in search of solutions.
Mexico is also party to the agreements for the Protection of the Marine Environment in the Caribbean region and the one on Cooperation for the Protection of Sustainable Development in Marine and Coastal Areas of the Pacific.
“These two agreements are an important spearhead in the analysis of international obligations that Mexico has acquired for the protection of marine life,” he said.
For the development of the Remar Plan, we are working with other academic experts, civil society organizations and the public and private sectors.
According to data released during the presentation of the Plan, each Mexican consumes an average of 66 kilos of plastic per year, of which between 43 and 59 kilos become waste, meaning that they are not recycled or reused.
Of the waste, they point out, 38% is poorly managed, that is, it does not go to a suitable disposal site, but ends up in clandestine dumps or, where appropriate, in the sea.
In entities such as the State of Mexico, Chiapas, Puebla, Veracruz and Oaxaca, it is estimated that more than 500 tons of plastics are not collected each year.
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