The art of plastic reduction

Menos Plástico Es Fantastico

Each hour, the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico use more than 2.5 million plastic bottles. At this rate, in 2050, there’ll be more plastic than fish in the oceans across the globe. And while 52% of recycling facilities accept PET (plastic bottles), estimates show that only 5% are recycled. The rest ends up dumped in landfills, or worse, into our oceans.

The normally pristine beaches of Mahahual are combating an unending stream of plastics from local and international sources: plastic bottles, bottle caps, diesel and oil containers, detergent flasks, car parts, balls of various sports like footballs and baseballs, children’s toys, and figurines, flip flops and shoes. Far removed from the luxurious hotels along the Costa Maya and the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, the beaches of Mahahual are facing an ever-increasing stream of plastics from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, The United States, and even some parts of Africa, Europe, and South-East Asia.

Menos Plástico Es Fantastico is a community-focused non-profit organization working to tackle the root of the problem: the ever-growing consumption of single-use plastics. With various local projects, ranging from data-driven beach clean-ups, collaborations with the global scientific community, re-using plastic refuge in arts & crafts to gain awareness, circular organic farming, food waste collection, and free water refilling stations, they are at the forefront of reducing plastic consumption. Their mission: a plastic-free Mahahual to save endangered turtles, touristic beaches, biodiverse mangroves - and humans alike.

“Plastics pollution is so extensive that all the world’s oceans are touched by the waste”
Curtis Ebbesmeyer, Seattle oceanographer & author of “Flotsametrics and the Floating World.”

“The plastics on Mahahual’s picturesque beaches are more than an eyesore. They may threaten the fragile coral reef and mangrove ecosystems of the Yucatan Peninsula.”
H. Bruce Rinker, an ecologist at the Maine-based Biodiversity Research Institute