Understanding Plastics Mexico

Understanding Plastics Mexico will commit on eliminating one use plastic waste and improve the actual plastic waste management process in each municipality. Having the priority of changing consumer habits and conducts by promoting new methods of use and disposal of plastic, will generate positive impacts in different sectors. This can provide future cultural and educational modifications to preserve our environment and human health by acting properly.

Coordinating the collaboration with universities, businesses, hotels, citizens, scientists, fishing cooperatives, indigenous communities, municipalities and tourists will provide the solution a range of action that can impact our daily lives in a positive way. Creating new educational programs and challenge activities will foment the improvement of our consumer habits. 

This actions will change and motivate the lives of everyone involved in the process of implementation. Obtaining health benefits by having a new conscious use and disposal of plastic, will be measurable in each individual. 

Plastic waste is abundant in the Mexican Caribbean, almost one million tons of garbage are disposed each year, having a large percentage of it representing plastic. This numbers are being attacked with legal reforms and other municipal management but the efforts need parallel actions to strengthen the implementation of such reforms. Plastic waste is a health problem to thousands of people and indigenous communities. It is affecting natural life and the seas, cenotes and beaches are contaminated with its presence. 

More than one million people live in the area and are constantly being harmed by the plastic waste materials floating in the air and in the water. Tourists arrive in the thousands during high season and need to deal with the presence of the uncomfortable waste. Plastic needs to be Understood and its use and disposal should become responsibility of everyone involved in the process. 

Educational programs will provide guidelines and information to change the approach of the use of plastic and create a collective consciousness regarding its disposal. By generating innovative methods of action we can permeate the responsible culture within families and generations to motivate their permanent involvement. Everyone participating would be receiving economical and health benefits. 

Local authorities, citizens and indigenous communities are the population in need of immediate actions to reduce and eliminate plastic use in the caribbean. By implementing several actions such as cultural, social, environmental, legal and educational projects within these actors, our team has been able to determine their needs in an individual and collective approach. Each individual needs basically the same thing which represents quality of life and economical stability to evolve. Collectively we have another common need which is environmental preservation and human survival. These are basically the most essential needs in every community. 

Plastic has managed to threaten this future possibility by contaminating our essential needs and obliging us to act in order to face and solve the problem. By generating new businesses and having the information required to give value to each of the plastic waste materials, we can foment a collective interest and confront the problem with more impacts. This challenge solution is created to promote between each citizen the interest of collaboration and participation. Most of the time intention exists but information is limited. If we know and acknowledge the possible variations available we tend to ponder more rationally and generate better decisions regarding our future. 

Creating a model that can be replicated in every corner of the planet, our team and I intend to provide SOLVE and the Inter-American Development Bank with a lasting relationship promoting ethical and transparent actions that will benefit the planet considerably. The pilot challenge solution project would be implemented in Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum in its first year of operations with the intentions of being able to expand to further regional frontiers and possibly to other international territories in the Caribbean and Latin America. 

The team of Understanding Plastics Mexico has the main focus of generating positive impacts that can help each individual and collective group become better consumers and more conscious environmentalists. The process of changing consumer habits is a long term effort, in order to obtain permanent results there is a minimum of 7 year lapse to be able to ingrain new consumption thoughts and cultural habits regarding plastic waste. 

Universities and schools are the perfect venue to implement Environmental Fairs and Reducing Plastic Waste Activities. Community integration is needed to have a collective impact for which all of the nearby ejidos will participate in our activities of Clean Ejidos from Plastic Campaign and the Clean Beaches Brigade. The fishing cooperatives will also have their incentives when the Plastic Fishing Competitions are held, their collaboration to clean the sea and the rivers is essential. These actors are of such importance that a prize will be offered to the best innovative Plastic Fishing Net invented to collect the floating plastic waste.  

Our Tech Environmental Fair will address every scientist and inventor to provide suggestions and projects to reduce, recycle and reuse plastic waste. This innovations would be made public so that future generations have the motivation to continue evolving and inventing new solutions. 

Social campaigns and permanent social network presence will impulse the essence of the challenge solution so that information and activities are constantly promoted. All of our results and activity will be available to the public through our transparency window in the website created and social networks available. 

Understanding Plastics Mexico will implement several actions within our citizens, universities, indigenous communities, fishermen cooperatives, schools, tourists, businesses, municipalities, the state and the federation to truly face the challenge with success. These actions will have legal and technical background to become reforms that can provide the team and its benefactors with long term benefits and results. 

Understanding Plastics Mexico solution challenge is a new strategy of implementing several actions that are linked to each other in essence but vary in practical results. All of the methods and strategies in action are focused on the idea of eliminating single use plastic waste and reduce, recycle and reuse other plastic waste materials. This ideal is vast in probabilities and possibilities and provides our team with several sectors to influence and redirect. Being able to coordinate these different actions between universities, local governments, indigenous communities, businesses and other valuable participants is the key to generating powerful and meaningful impacts to improve our consumer habits and generate a new educational culture that preserves our collective essence. 

There are new technologies being implemented, new legal reforms being promulgated but the real effort needed comes from our personal interests as individuals and as being part of a collective community. We need to change our thoughts and our actions to become better consumers of plastic and pass through this cultural ideology and way of life to our future generations. This general intention becomes part of our unconscious behaviors when learned and understood thoroughly. 

Our team has been working together for more than 10 years with different projects involving social, cultural, environmental, economical or legal solutions for the collective community and individual benefit. We are resilient and we have confronted incongruities, faced outcomes, planed future possibilities, confronted changes and solved barriers of action always with intentions of generating new conducts for the collective wellbeing. 

For the last 15 years there has been a change in conducts regarding waste in the area of the Mexican Caribbean. We have seen different methods being implemented for the short term results and possibly the medium term results but none of them are focusing their efforts towards a long term result that will prevail throughout generations. This simple method is repetition and constant promotion of the wanted ideals and new social conducts. Routine and discipline are two great tools to use for this challenge to become effective and successful. 

Environmental Educational programs need to be implemented in schools and universities to inform and educate the students about plastic use and waste. This will provoke an interest in students that could reflect in short and long term benefits if they get involved in acknowledging the actual social problems and designing solutions. This could possibly motivate them to become mentors in the future. 

The public fairs, educational activities, cleaning campaigns and other interesting competitions will provide the knowledge required by each individual to understand the economical, social and health benefits obtained when participating in this actions regarding the use and waste of plastic. This will provide actors with a perspective to attack future large scale social problems. 

Also by fomenting new businesses, people can get the motivation to begin companies to confront the evolving problem. Existing businesses would also have the tools to improve their own actions regarding the process mentioned or even search for innovative measures to obtain new ventures. 

This challenge solution implemented by Understanding Plastics Mexico is serving a total of 1000 families within different ejidos in Quintana Roo by collaborating with the indigenous communities permanently in diverse actions regarding environmental protection, forestry, tourism, education, waste management and social wellbeing. This families also impact other people when in contact with their ordinary jobs and responsibilities, allowing them to have the information and expertise required to understand the problems that surround them.

The intention is to implement several actions in universities, local governments, businesses, hotels, fishing cooperatives, indigenous communities and other sectors in order to have a stronger impact regarding plastic use and waste in the area. This actions would impact and benefit more than 50,000 people within all of these boundaries of action. By fomenting activity and motivating action within each individual and collective group we can generate the spheres of action where a total of 12 people can provoke positive impacts. 

Having these spheres of action, we can approach a vast number of people by replicating this solution anywhere we want. If possible, in five years we could have a positive impact in more than 1,000,000 one million people having the probability of multiplying that number by 5 if the social communication tools become permanent to contain the ideological modifications of our conducts in a constant effort. By having partners and third party businesses we can have a larger influence in the Caribbean and Latin American countries that can collaborate with solving the problem of plastic waste. 

Our positive impact will be measured in health standards, educational progress, waste recycling, plastic single use elimination and environmental benefits. We will have a constant documentation database that will acknowledge the before and after effect in each of our actions implemented. The result will be available to the public so that they can see the investment and the results obtained from the program implemented. 

There has been measurable impacts provoked by our actions in several areas with environmental benefits such as the growth of forestry protection in Coba, the creation of protected areas within several indigenous communities such as Muyil and Tulum, the study of actual legal problems regarding new construction sites in Cancun and the creation of new businesses that benefit the collective communities regarding farming products and plantations. 

Social benefits have been measured with due diligence by the ejido authorities and documented in their legal activities. Some ejidos have had the problematic of language and interpretation to give their communities structure, and be able to obtain federal and state economical support to help their activities. Protection regulations and waste management rules have been slowly implemented in the ejidos so that fewer people burn their trash and give value to plastics that can be recycled. 

This revenues obtained have reflected enthusiasm by obtaining economical income and having constant access to new clothing and transporting methods. Most of the economical benefits that where measured have the tendency of being reinvested for the improvement of future positive actions regarding the program. 

Collaboration is necessary to increase the positive impacts searched for in this solution challenge. We want to have short, medium and long term effects in society and our ordinary lives. In order for this innovative initiative to become a permanent reality we need tolerance and patience within the different process of implementation. People need to be reminded daily of their routine shores so that in the future these behaviors and conducts are innate. To believe that work needs to be done in a long term effect is essential so that we can obtain short term benefits with our actions. We have the ability of influencing people easily though the internet and social media, by generating a permanent campaign regarding the use and waste of plastic for the next 15 years we can try overcome all the environmental problems we´ll face. This is something that works and is proved. In order to change cultural background and provoke new conducts we need constant efforts in the total of sectors collaborating. 

All of the mentioned activities need to be constantly and yearly evolved to be part of the attractions in the area. All the fairs, competitions, educational projects, artistic venues and activities implemented can be replicated anywhere in the world with the spheres of action strategy. An international congress to Rethink Plastics will be held at the end of the solution implementation. In order to obtain results we need to work together and join forces to achieve multiple economic and health benefits.  

The main barriers for this solution challenge to become a reality are economical and financial. Sadly our technical, legal, cultural and social capacity is always dependent on our income to act and implement our solutions. This challenge has a prize that would benefit our actions significantly and if the one year funding is obtained to implement our pilot, the effort would be multiplied and the measurable results would confirm the efficiency of the solution. The timeline used in this solution is of 7 years so the main focus we would search would be gaining financial stability, we also have the mission of becoming self sustainable by creating new businesses and companies that can benefit the solution capital income and generate internal sustentation. 

Social acceptance is not a problem, it is no longer a myth that plastic waste is damaging our environment and our health. Municipal authorities are no longer a barrier, their responsibility regarding plastic waste is undeniable and their actions are being monitored. The social benefits obtained are more reasonable than the problems faced when attacked in collaboration and coordination. Sometimes market barriers could appear regarding the recycling of the plastic valuables, but since there is a vast number of possibilities we can always consider this barrier a shorter one to jump. 

Our aim is to generate the largest impact posible, if that requires extra effort and extra time we are willing to commit to our purpose in order to obtain collective wellbeing and a better quality of life. 

Since we have been collaborating with different sectors in the Mexican Caribbean, we have generated empathy within several actors involving the process of plastic use and waste. Also, our permanent presence and support towards local businesses and indigenous communities have provided us with the knowledge to overcome most of the problems faced during these past years. 

We have contact with municipal authorities, state and federal collaboration is also available within out team and most of all, we have expertise regarding funding and obtaining donations. Cultural barriers are unnoticeable because of our different approach to each and every variation of posible cultural interests, having an open mind to solve each individual problem. In order to obtain financial support and overcome that barrier, we are intended to create partnerships and new businesses to prepare our team for future actions. 

Environmental changes will occur, that will have to be faced independently and with the purpose of also having a solution to each of the problems confronted. 

Our team of 12 expert workers allows us to become resilient towards any posible barriers and most of the time issues are solved by collective think tanks and worktables of imposible thoughts. Discipline and work are our most favorable allies and our dedication to try and make this world a better place is our strongest power to help this challenge become a reality. Searching to prospect replicas everywhere in the Caribbean and Latin America to obtain larger scale results and benefit to as many people as possible. 

The market opportunity for this solution challenge to be implemented in the rest of the Caribbean and Latin American countries is vast. The methods and action implementation are replicable everywhere since they conglomerate a number of sectors that exist in most of the countries in the area. The possibility of being replicated is high and the spheres of action could be taught so that their implementation is quick and efficient. The main focus of this expansion is to have individual funding and individual generation of profits with the creation of new businesses, partnerships and donations. 

This educational solution involves different activities that can be implemented in sequence at different countries during the same time, provoking a more intense impact by using the communication tools for the promotion of the solution challenge with international collaboration.

Every method, guideline, educational program, contest and fair contains operational manuals that will help other countries with its implementation. Each activity is documented so that the information is available to everyone interested in replicating the solution in other parts of the globe. The transparency used to publicly inform the population of the investments made and the results obtained will have parameters of action measurable for other countries to consider. 

In order to become a global reality, the intention of this challenge solution is to make this world a better place for our children; and also make our children better humans for this world. It is something that benefits everyone involved in the process of the implementation. 

Understanding Plastics Mexico has a total of 6 full time staff members and 6 part time members that most of the time become full time during the important dates. Our team is conformed of 12 professionals with cultural, social, educational, environmental, sustainable development, permaculture, touristic and economical expertise. We all have more than 10 years working with communities in the area. 

Our contractors are mostly cooperatives and communities that have the experience needed to help us with the implementation of our diverse actions. From designers to construction workers, our needs require several professions to become a reality in each sector. 

Jose Perez Lopez is the Director of the solution challenge, he is an environmental lawyer with more than 15 years of experience regarding legal consulting, energy, waste management, forestry and sustainable development. He worked for the state and federal government with collaboration with the United Nations. 

Maria Jose Cardenas is the SubDirector of the solution challenge, she has more than 10 years of experience working with educational programs with children and universities. She has worked for Greenpeace and other environmental NGOs. 

Paula Restrepo is a comercial business woman that foments local businesses and gives work to many indigenous women. She is an expert creating new markets and provides communities with revenues and businesses. 

Cristobal Raviella is a permanent promoter of indigenous communities and has helped them with the regularization of their efforts. He is the link between several ejidos and local municipal authorities. He has more than 25 years of experience with local businesses and touristic attractions. 

Giorgio Bucarelly is a touristic coordinator and has influence in many businesses around Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum. His environmental background has benefited local commerce and has provoked the innovation for new construction implementations. 

Christopher Ruvalcaba is the event expert and coordinator; fairs, environmental contests and public concerts. With 13 years experience organizing international and national events. 

These are the basic members of our team and the rest are in the same order of skills and determination to make this challenge a permanent reality. We want to generate eternal long term impacts. 

We have not yet partnered with organizations, only coordination and collaboration with municipal authorities and indigenous communities. We have been working directly with them in several causes but we are firmly aiming to partner with other possible third party members. 

This is one of our main objetives, to obtain long term actions and impacts. Being realistic, we can obtain better results when collaborating with partners which makes us stronger in our actions. 

The solution is designed to obtain great results that can be measured constantly. Most of the actors involved will be motivated to continue with their efforts and probably search for permanent collaboration. Partners will show interest in our actions not only for this pilot, but for constant and serious involvement for future solutions. 

Understanding Plastics Mexico has an efficient business model that reflects each of our actions with positive measurable impacts and economical revenues. In order to work perfectly we need our complete team of 12 individual members to operate with quality all the implementation of the initiative sphere. The incentives required to maintain the operational structure are adequate to the actions and do not compromise the function of the solution. The $250,000.00 dollars award offered for the challenge pilot benefits each of or actions implemented, facilitating our operation and obtaining better results. Donations and funding would be a tendency to become self sufficient in the future. 

Coordination of the University Environmental Fairs, the Fishing Plastic Competition, the Tech Fair, Cleaning Ejidos Program, the Clean Beaches Brigade, the Art Fairs and public presentations need perfect timing and will be considered essential for future promotion and cultural education. The educational programes created, consumer habit guidelines, children educational apps, operational manuals, web site and social network management, legal reforms and other documented actions will provide results in short, medium and long terms. Each of the events will have a small collaboration fare to become self sufficient in future years. 

All of these actions will benefit students, citizens, families, tourists and indigenous communities providing them with possible revenues and social wellbeing. The positive social impacts will be reflected in every consumer habit of the area. The infrastructure needed for all of this implementations only need investment for the first year, the future years would be covered. 

There will be financial challenges after the second year of operations if the pilot is accepted and the prize is obtained. 

After implementing these actions for the solution the promotion and publicity obtained in the first year will give us recognition and long term objectives to obtain donations from interested people and businesses. 

The main focus to have resources is to create businesses and companies that can generate income while benefiting the environment and society. These new markets will be needed to continue working daily and obtain a new consumer habits consciousness to save our health from plastic damage. 

When the plastic waste is valorized we can obtain economical profits from several different comercial markets. There are plastic materials that are worth more than others and some can be used to create art pieces or different new reusable products. Everything created has it value and could be sold in the artistic fairs of plastic waste. 

Each year we would be offering our profesional services to governments, indigenous communities and businesses that require advice or consulting regarding environmental, educational, legal or any other aspect that our team can help to solve.This would give us extra income to apply in future actions regarding our objectives. 

This variety of posible income generators have the same destination, to give Understanding Plastics Mexico the economical independence required to continue operations permanently and obtain less grants and loans. The partners would provide certainty to obtain better results in the long term. Reinvesting profits is healthy.  

I am thankful to the International Development Bank for having the opportunity of presenting this solution for the challenge to Rethink Plastics. 

The awards obtained if selected as a winner would definitely change my life and the Understanding Plastics Mexico team. Benefiting all the areas where the implemented actions would take place. The positive impacts we intent to generate are important to begin a new consumer habits social action regarding the use and waste of plastic. 

I have been enjoying the Mexican Caribbean for several years and sometimes it makes me sad to see so much plastic waste in the surrounding areas. If my team and myself get selected to represent your needs we would offer sincerity, dedication and professional background to make of this the best there can be. All of our actions and implementations would be highly revised so that permanent effects are obtained. 

We are searching for results that no other strategy has obtained, we want to believe in the imposible and integrate our elders with the children within each community. To be able to overcome our barriers we need to receive this award and believe that we are capable of accomplishing our dreams. Several of our members live with compromise towards general environmental protection and social wellbeing. 

Certainly we have provided the solution with integral variations of action in specific sectors. Those unknown will have open opportunities for future years implementing the new solutions. The focus is to improve our model each year by becoming better. 

There are several businesses and public entities that could become permanent partners for the benefit of Understanding Plastics Mexico. 

There are several sectors interested in social and environmental responsibility. To be able to significantly eliminate single use plastic waste in Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum to reduce, recycle and reuse the other plastic waste materials requires a collective effort. 

Our consumption culture needs to be eradicated and changed for good. Different sectors of the state think likewise and will be future prospects for partnering. 

This year these are possible partners:

The University of Quintana Roo - this partnership would provide us with venues to implement our solutions and with a vast number of participants to become an educational reality. 

Supraciclaje - the recycling plant will become our partner so that they can give value to plastic waste and provide individuals with economical benefits. Their recycling capacity is the best in the country. 

Cooperativa Punta Allen - they are the fishing cooperatives that need to partner with us to continue with our actions regarding the cleaning of seas and beaches. 

Grupo Experiencias Xcaret - this is a large group that could help us incredibly if partnered with us. They have a lot of influence with tourists and their workforce is immense. They also have abundant and helpful knowledge.

Local authorities and municipal presidents need to partner up with our cause also for they will be the ones directly benefiting from our actions generating popularity and social recognition for their involvement.