Mexico To Enforce Trash Separation
by Eliza Barclay, Washington, D.C. 
on 01. 9.09
Since 2004, the Mexico City government has been trying to convince residents to separate their trash for recycling and composting purposes. An ambitious solid waste law requires residents and businesses to separate organic waste from inorganic trash.
Unfortunately, a lot of plastic and other inorganic matter ends up in the organic receptacles, stymieing efforts to generate a clean channel of compostable garbage. As we reported last year, the city produces about 12,000 tons of waste a day. Some 5,100 tons are organic waste, a huge potential resource for local farmers if only it could be collected by the city's trash services. This week, the city's environment minister, Martha Delegado, announced that she has had enough of the tomfoolery in the trash division and would hereby try to enforce the solid waste law with a mano dura, or heavier hand.
The federal district, or Distrito Federal, of Mexico City is divided into 16 boroughs, and Delegado's plan is to offer new training courses for the garbage personnel in each bureau to sensitize them to the importance of recycling and composting. Delegado's office has given each borough a deadline for 150 days to come up with their own specific plan for carrying out the solid waste law. If they don't comply, they'll be fined.
Since 1998, the city has operated a compost plant in a peripheral industrial zone. But the plant has always operated under capacity in part because the city has struggled to capture all the organic waste and deliver it to the plant. Perhaps Delegado's new leadership on the issue will change that. : Via Teorema Ambiental (Spanish link)
Photo credit: Teorema Ambiental
More on Composting:
Mexico City To Compost Food Waste From Central Food Market
San Francisco Compost Closes the Loop
Compostadores.com – Specialists in Domestic Composting
Build Your Own Compost Tumbler
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The problem with this, as with other plans mentioned for various US cities are twofold:
1 - It turns garbage collectors into cops, a job they are ill suited to do, and
2 - It is far too easy to jack the system.
If you do something draconian, say "If we find something recyclable in your garbage, you get fined", there is no real way for an individual to defend themselves.
An individual cannot prove to the local authorities that someone else through that soda can into their garbage, but that individual will be held responsible for what is put in their garbage can that is outside their control, and sitting in public, for the better part of a day.
Yes, their should be more and better separation of all waste, but this is just unworkable in the real world.
Japan is well ahead on this issue. Here you will always find trash separated into four or five categories:pet bottles, cans, combustible and incombustible trash.