We were in Progresso this past winter on vacation. Actually we stayed just outside Progresso, near Tel Chuc.
Everywhere you see huge mountains of plastic pop bottles, discarded. Now, as I understand it, the local people are used to tossing their garbage in the bush, most of the bones and paper disintegrating naturally. However, since the large, plastic bottles do not disintegrate naturally, nor do the pop companies (Pepsi and Coke) offer recycling pick-ups, there are huge piles of pop bottles everywhere with no where for them to be recycled or picked up.
Oddly enough, when you go to a restaurant, or drive by the general store, the pop company’s signs are immaculate; freshly painted, never scratched, nor are the plastic tables and chairs they give to some local restaurants in bad shape.
Seems, if they can make the trip to maintain the signs, can they not pick up the empties as well? I emailed Pepsi - they referred me to the environmental part of their website but no mention of all the bottles.
If you put them there, can you not take them away?
Since when is trash collection the responsibility of the Pepsi company? Are they only supposed to pick up trash that has their corporate logo, or do they have to pick up any Coke cans that are out there, too?
NAFTA has really opened up free trade which is not a bad thing…however, there should be some planning in equipping people with product and not dealing with the end result.
Yes, the observation that the garbage should not be put there in the first place is a correct one. However, the other part of my story was that Pepsi and Coke come through there fairly often to drop off supplies; fix up incentive gifts they may or may not provide to the proprietors of the stores and bars along the way - why can they not organize a pick up of the empties as well?
These, and plastic bags, are relatively new to the area and the population is not equipped to deal with it. It’s a grand opening for a soft drink company to move in and make a great statement…it’s unfortunate they’ve chosen not to.
Dude- I went for a long visit to Baja like 25 years ago. Soda “Refrescos” was common, even though in glass bottles. So was beer. Sure, the bottles with a deposits were cleaned up, but those without were left everywhere- trash was everywhere. It’s not Pepsi, it’s the people.
The litter is definitely unsightly and it will take probably a generation or two to correct this. Starting in the 90’s, grade schools began campaigns to teach children put trash in its proper place and public trash recepticles are far more common.
A mandatory deposit on all containers, plastic or glass would help a lot. But that meets opposition from the plastic and glass manufacturers and the soft drink companies.
BTW, Pepsi and Coca-cola were here long before NAFTA was even a dream in the politicians minds. So were plastic bottles and plastic bags. Mexico has the highest per capita consumption of all countries.
It’s a nice sentiment, but completely impractical. The amount of energy wasted transporting, washing and sterilizing heavyweight glass bottles makes it cost prohibitive.
It’s not like Mexico didn’t have soft drinks before NAFTA. Mexicans are not primitive people who don’t know how to throw garbage away. If there’s garbage around, it’s the fault of the local municipality.
I bet they could, if the appropriate government agency paid them to do it. Garbage collection costs money. Why should someone do it for free? There’s probably lots of trash colelction and recycling companies in Mexico who’d kill for that work.
WTF? This is no different than arguing that Pepsi has to throw away garbage for these people. If these locations were truly enterprising, they would create their own recycling companies. If the local government actually gave a shit, they would subsidize or give tax incentives to create a recycling station/business. Of, wtf, have the government do it themselves.
I think part of the problem is that Mexico hasn’t gone through a nationwide behavior-change campaign like the U.S. did inthe late 1960’s. I’m not sure, but I think many U.S. residents were in the habit of throwing garbage out the car window before that time, and many Mexican residents stil do this.
I’m generally happy to rag on large corporate soft drink manufacturers. If your rant had been about union-busting or something like that, i could have gotten on board. But i really don’t see the logic in blaming the companies for this garbage problem.
And it seems to me that your argument implies that Mexicans are too primitive or stupid to know what to do with garbage unless someone holds their hands. As Miller said, the problem of garbage in Mexico isn’t a NAFTA-created problem, and if it’s not being cleaned up then this is a problem with municipal policy.