Angelica Enciso L.
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, February 21, 2022, p. 18
While companies and industry press to continue generating plastics without assuming their responsibility for the effects of these materials and wash the face
arguing that they are recyclable, official data indicates that only 9 percent go through this process, which is not harmless; more natural resources are used, such as water, and energy is consumed. The interest of industrialists and merchants continues to predominate over the protection of health and the environment, warn specialists.
Coca Cola, Pepsico, Nestlé and Unilever are still the main generators of plastics, and the waste from their products is on the beaches and reaches the oceans, where they end up between 8 and 13 million tons each year, said Miguel Rivas. , director of Marine Sanctuaries, of Oceana. The waste pollutes and impacts marine biodiversity, since it is estimated that 90 percent of local birds have plastic in their stomachs, die from poisoning or are unable to feed, he explained.
In 2019, globally, Coca Cola reported more than 230 billion pieces of packaging and 124 billion plastic bottles. Of these, 97 million are for single use, said Ornela Garelli, of Greenpeace. Pollution represents a great global environmental crisis and is the consequence of a plastic economy
largely linear in which 95 per cent of the packaging’s added value is lost after a short cycle of first and only use, warned WWF.
In the country, the legislation still does not recognize the extended responsibility of the producer, which implies that he takes charge of the materials throughout their life cycle and does not leave the weight to the citizen and the authorities; There is also no progress towards a true circular economy, whose purpose is to reuse products as much as possible and thus avoid the generation of waste, said Marisa Jacott of the organization Fronteras Comunes.
In an interview, he recalled that the Chamber of Deputies is pending approval of the Circular Economy Law, which, unlike other countries, where it is requested to reuse a product as much as possible and avoid its waste, here is committed to recycling. In the opinion approved by the Senate, last November, it seeks to legitimize recycling with incineration, co-processing and thermovaluation techniques, which implies the burning of plastics that will cause the emission of gases harmful to health
he warned.
To this is added that the modifications that the Senate made to the General Law for the Prevention and Integral Management of Residues they are regressive because there are states that had made progress on single-use plastics, such as Mexico City, but now efforts to achieve greater bans are invalidated
. Garelli mentioned that the prevention priority is established in the waste management pyramid, that is, avoiding the generation of waste. The next thing is to reduce this manufacturing, then reuse so that they do not become waste; then there is recycling and final disposal.
