Mexico City against plastic bags

The consumption of plastic bags in Mexico City is estimated at 20 million a day starting this Thursday and will be charged for them because of the new Law on Solid Waste.Want a bag? For two pesos. Or three, or one, or determine what each business. What is certain is that it will not be free in Mexico City from Thursday, with the entry into force of the new Solid Waste Act.
So the city government hopes reduce consumption of plastic bags, estimated over 20 million a day only in the Federal District.
The traditional bags that supermarkets often offer are produced using oil and depending on its thickness, can take hundreds of years to degrade themselves.
To soften the environmental impact from the August 19 merchants in Mexico City should charge customers for plastic bags, which also must be biodegradable.
Otherwise, they risk being punished with an arrest for 36 hours and fines ranging from 1,000 to 20,000 days of minimum wage.

Mexico City against plastic bags

The Solid Waste Act was passed in August 2009. Thereafter, the Environment Committee of the Legislative Assembly of the City had one year to study and determine the details of the standard.
But now that the date is in the offing, nor many of the capital's businesses are ready for change, nor is there consensus on the rules of law.

"We do not know. I still have not told us anything," he said Tuesday in a grocery store workers who help put the purchase and against to plastic bags.And that, in one of the major supermarket chains in Mexico.
In the "24 hours" in the corner, also belonging to a well-known business group, also had much more information unless they are "waiting for the company send a statement with the details".
Just a day before the entry into force of the law, neither biodegradable bags were available, no idea how much it would charge each.The law has been widely criticized. The National Association of Plastics Industries (Anipac) perhaps could be expected, but even the Green Party itself has strong objections.
From both perspectives agree that the wording of the law is ambiguous and therefore inapplicable consider sanctions.
"Just developing the regulations may be established by law as such," he told BBC Alberto Couttlolenc, Green Party deputy chairman of the Committee on the Environment of the Federal District Legislative Assembly.

A plastic bag of sugarcane to reduce CO2 emissions

The industrial group from plastics Sphere has developed a new plastic bag made from polyethylene plant of bioethanol from sugar cane that claimed, to prevent the emission of 78,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.

According to estimates provided by the company, between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of polyethylene bags can reduce plant pollution figures regarding fossil polyethylene bags (traditional plastic bags) in an amount equivalent to a car that emits 125 grams of CO2 per km for 15 600 times around the world.

Polyethylene Plant is the first bioplastic with industrial production to absorb carbon, which presents a potential for reducing greenhouse gases.
Specifically, ethanol is made from sugar cane base and for certain applications, too, with potato starch. Potato starch gives elasticity, opacity and texture, while sugar cane can get the same mechanical properties as a polythene bag fossil.

A natural carbon source

In addition, sugar cane is a natural carbon source which contributes to further reduce CO2 in the growth phase than other ethanol production plants, and has a yield of 2 tons per hectare polyethylene plant, about 5-10 times other plants that produce ethanol.

Sphere ensures that pockets of this material is adapted to "all present uses" such as garbage bags, freezing or transparent film, and maintains the technical properties Dwellings equivalent to fossil carbon polyethylene, such as transparency, opacity, brightness or colors and is suitable for food.

The 'reincarnation' of plastic bags

The smell is detected long before through the door. It is dense. to waste. Inside, tons of containers of all colors and shapes fall from the trucks, including thousands, millions of plastic bags, those films that are caught as easily on the shelves for the most trivial objects and only 13 % ends up in a yellow container to be reincarnated in a container or a pipe.

We are in the plant selection and the recycling of plastics Amorebieta, just outside Bilbao, one of the largest in the country.

The Spanish are still primary pupils in the subject of recycling, but slowly we are passing exams. From 1997 to extend have recovered 10 million tons of packaging his life turned into something else. It is the equivalent of 10 stadiums like the Bernabeu clogged.
Of these, eight million were recycled, because there is a 25% of the waste (unfit, they are called) that goes wrong and located at home. Still, this simple gesture of separating waste meant a saving of 7.7 million tonnes of CO2 or annual water consumption of four million people.

"It is therefore important to select good household waste, but so is reducing the containers used or that companies take steps to save on raw material and do: since 1996 have managed to save 75,000 tonnes saving measures, explains Antonio Barron, director of communications Ecoembes, a nonprofit company that manages recycling.
Population not in containers

With 12,400 associates, Ecoembes ensures that covers 90% of the packaging market, all bearing the green dot indicates that they can be recycled and therefore pay a fee.

However, for this conversion takes place must be near a yellow container. Adolfo, who lives in Guardo (Palencia) is part of 1.5% of the population who, according Ecoembes, does not. "It's a shame, not even paper," he complains. So their plastics are not among that 38% is recycled.