Swapping recyclables for produce in Mexico City(1)

Isabel Becerril has come with some friends to the “barter market” in the Mexican capital, to exchange 40 kilos of recyclable refuse for fresh produce, sweets and plants. “This is the first time I have come here, and I like it,” said the university student , with her ecological bag in hand.

“This encourages people to separate their trash,” says Becerril, 20, a student of graphic design at the Autonomous Metropolitan University.

Since March, the Mercado del Trueque,  or barter market, has operated the first Sunday of each month in the Bosque de Chapultepec, a forested park that is described as “the lungs of the city”, to the west of the capital. The market is an idea by groups of local vegetable, plant vendors and Mexico City's secretariat of the environment. 

The barter mechanism is simple. In a large white tent, SMA employees and volunteers at 20 tables receive cardboard, paper, glass, aluminium, plastic bottles, electronic devices and other waste from consumers, weigh the materials, and give the customers slips of paper which they hand over at kiosks for plastic vouchers representing the points they earned.

Using these vouchers, they can buy tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, lemons and other produce from farmers from districts surrounding Mexico City. The amounts depend on the points gained.

For example, one kilogram of plastic bottles is equivalent to 24 points, one of aluminium is worth 16, and a kilo of cardboard or glass, three points each.

And at the vegetable stands, 20 points can buy half a kilo of tomatoes or potatoes.

The project “has been a success for the farmers,” says Erick Izquierdo of the Tierra Nueva Cooperative, founded in 2011 to advise small farmers on agroecological practices.

“The idea is for people to meet peasant farmers, see what they grow, and value their work,” he said

In Xochimilco, one of the 16 administrative divisions of the capital, Izquierdo raises rabbits and quail, and grows plums, avocados and lettuce.

Recycling is still in its infancy in Mexico. Of the more than 40 million tons of garbage generated every year in this country of 112 million people, only 15 percent is recycled. And in Mexico City, which produces 13,000 tons of solid waste a day, the rate is just 12 percent.

Farmers participating in the barter market have gained a new place to sell their produce and earn an extra income, which is paid by the SMA.

The recycling industry also benefits, because the materials collected are trucked to a company that processes and prepares them for industrial uses.

The Mexico City Federal District law on solid waste, passed in 2003, makes the separation of organic and inorganic waste obligatory, for their management and recycling.