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The courtyard of Casa Nuestra, which was the seat of the Mexican Senate for 80 years, is covered with several hundred blue wooden panels spread out in a spiral. One has the impression of witnessing an unfortunate accident, as if the platforms had geometrically collapsed under their own weight. But the staging is no coincidence: the pallets or pallets, wooden pallets used to transport heavy objects, belong to CHEP, an Australian company specialized in logistics that has organized the exhibition Endless cycle to illustrate the principles of the circular economy: the reuse and extension of the life of materials.
The exhibition, staged by André-Jaques Bodin in mid-June, is presented as a “visual metaphor” of particular simplicity: the set of pallets is circular and blue to represent “the purity, hope and vitality of the environment.” Bodin, a French architect based in Mexico, mentions among his references the famous Japanese print The Great Wave off Kanagawaby artist Katsushika Hokusai, which captures a turbulent ocean about to destroy a wooden ship.
The pallets, which Casa Nuestra employees placed in a spiral for four hours, seek to evoke “harmony and the constant flow of resources,” a challenge to the linear, use-and-discard model. Bodin points out that, in addition to referencing the circular economy, the CHEP pallets evoke a series of abstractions, in the vein of conceptual art: cycles, rebirth, and death.
The work itself is a prosaic expression of the concept of circular economy. “It’s an ephemeral art,” says Bodin. “The installation will only stay for a while, and then the objects we use will be injected back into the life of this market, they will circulate, they will be used.” The pallets are part of CHEP’s active fleet and, according to Maria Salceda Urbina, the company’s corporate communications manager, they would be reused in the Australian company’s activities after the exhibition is over. She explains that the company has around 360 million pallets. pallets in more than 60 countries around the world. And they themselves practice the circular model: they do not sell their products, but rent them.
The circular economy arrives in Mexico
This exhibition, which was ephemeral—it was only at Casa Nuestra for three days—is part of the boom media coverage of the circular economy, an increasingly popular concept at the intersection between the world of sustainability and the corporate world. While the term has been around since the 1990s, it took more than twenty years for it to gain popularity. The catalyst was the adoption by the European Commission of the first Action Plan for the circular economy in 2015, later consolidated with the European Green Deal in 2019.
In Mexico, the adoption of the circular economy has gained momentum from regional policies to local initiatives, driven by both the need to conserve resources and the pressure to mitigate the effects of climate change. The General Law on the Circular Economy, approved by the Senate in November 2021, established a legal framework covering everything from waste management to the reuse of resources in multiple industrial sectors. The regulatory framework sought not only to reduce environmental impact, but also to reduce the impact of the environment. promote “innovation, redesign and sustainable development.” However, it has been immobilized in the Chamber of Deputies for more than two years.
In the capital, Mexico City’s Circular Economy Law came into force in March 2023. The regulation, which promotes responsible production and consumption through reuse, restoration, remanufacturing and recycling, includes instruments such as the circularity assessment procedure and the circularity badge for companies. According to Patricia Güereca, a researcher at the Engineering Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), this latest regulation is “more comprehensive and complete” than the stagnant General Law, since in addition to waste management, it considers the social aspects of the circular economy in greater depth. The rest of the country lacks similar regulatory frameworks. While 29 states in Mexico prohibit or regulate single-use plastics, just two have “a waste management system with a circular economy approach”: Quintana Roo and Baja California.
The implementation of the circular economy has not been without criticism and challenges. As reported by this newspaper, in 2022 a series of industrial conglomerates pushed changes to the General Law for the Prevention and Comprehensive Management of Waste and the Circular Economy Law in Congress. Activists and opposition legislators pointed out that these proposals would be a significant setback in the fight against plastic pollution, as they would transfer the responsibility of managing waste to municipal governments.
A particularly controversial proposal on the part of this conglomerate was the incorporation of pepenadores, waste collectors, into the formal sector. About 182,000 people In Mexico, 1,000 people work as scavengers; however, most of them are employed informally, without benefits or social security. According to those opposed to these initiatives, the formalization of these workers would free companies from designing their own systems to recover, separate and recycle their products. These measures, they claimed, were aligned with the interests of the industry and not with the principles of the true circular economy, which seeks to reduce the exploitation of resources and minimize pollution.
“We need alliances, public policies and education”
According to Güereca, a researcher at UNAM, the lack of information is the main limitation “to move towards a circular economy.” “The circular economy does not only imply recycling or reusing,” says the researcher. “It is crucial to evaluate, in a quantified and objective way, the environmental impacts that are being avoided by implementing circular economy scenarios… How can we evaluate the success of a policy if we do not have that information?”
For the UNAM academic, another difficulty in implementing this sustainability technique is the lack of coordination between private and public actors. “The lack of integration and certainty at the level of a legal framework sometimes generates rejection and holds back certain sectors,” says Güereca. “There is no legal framework that allows us to identify with concrete indicators or adequately evaluate the benefits of circularity.”
“We need effective, frank, open and transparent communication between all sectors to seek win-win scenarios for all those involved,” concludes Güereca. “We need alliances, public policies and education on the part of society.”
In that sense, the joint initiative between CHEP and Casa Nuestra suggests that steps forward are being taken when it comes to promoting public education regarding the circular economy. The exhibition is part of the company’s goal to “educate one million people about the circular economy around the world,” says Salceda. “We already achieved it, but we want more.” For his part, Bodin highlights the power of art to also communicate in the corporate world. “This opens up new perspectives and allows them to address a topic, draw attention and provoke emotions. “Everyone wins with this initiative.”
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