Mexico City is one of the most populated cities in the world. It has 20 million inhabitants who produce 650,000 tons of daily waste that ends up in landfills. The Benito Juarez Borough of Mexico City was looking for better system for recollecting and using this waste. They approached a design team for the answer.
“Just thinking about the numbers of people, cars, and waste is overwhelming,” said the designers of the Waste Recovering System. “We had 650,000 tons of daily improvement opportunities, and on top of that, we had to deal with politics, citizens, bad working conditions, and a workers union.”
Using the Waste Recovering System citizens are offered a better and easier system for waste separation and cleaner streets. Workers are offered better working tools for waste recollection, improving recycling methods, lives, and environmental conditions.
To develop the ultimate solution, the design team thought in a systemic way. They divided the group into small teams to work with independent projects, but still organized around a collective and well-orchestrated solution. The result was different products, including street containers, trucks, and biogas plants, services, and a whole new system, which all ensures nothing ends in a landfill.
“There have been positive impacts not only in the daily lives of the citizens, who receive an efficient service and a clean city, but also in improving the life and environmental conditions of all places and people involved; workers and peasants outside the city, forests, mines, and water sources. The constant and growing need of resources for mankind’s consumerism is devastating our planet; we must completely change our way of viewing waste as useless and instead see it as valuable resources that are part of the cycle of all natural systems.”
Designed by
Victor Martinez, Pablo Herrera, Ana Sofia Reyes-Retana, Miguel Franco, Jose Gordillo, Azucena Muñoz, Maria Madgalena Gonzalez, Manuel Amaro, Sandra Portillo, Michaela Stachova, Salvador Guerrero, Juan Herrera, Daniel Gayosso, Alejandra de la Cerda, Pedro Diaz, Diego Stehle, Gabriela Morales, Jessica Zepeda, Tania Muñoz, Fabiola Lezama, Ricardo Suarez, Salvador Soto, Benjamín Valencia - Queretaro, Mexico
