Mexico – ground zero for plastic bans

Sector: Consumer Packaged Goods

Topics: Regulation of PET plastics

Geography: Mexico. Of 300 million tonnes of plastic packaging produced globally each year, Mexico City alone adds 13tonnes to that total per day, 2^nd only to New York. Recycling infrastructure is poor and 90% of plastic waste ends in landfills. Mexico’s voracious appetite for soft drinks - consumption is twice as much as the USA per capita - made it the global ground-zero of sugar tax legislation. The risk is that plastics regulation follows next.

Goal: Avoid a patchwork of different, inconsistent plastics bans and taxes across 32 States and Federal level and ensure PET is exempted.  

Challenge: The client’s heavy resource base in Mexico City meant it relied extensively on partners in each state. Each had different competencies, approaches and data acumen and the client was unable to identify and aggregate trends at a country level, was slow to coordinate and respond to trends and hence was reactive vs. proactive on the issue.

5 Step Solution: centralise all data into a issue and stakeholder ‘learning’ system for:

• Shared data and insights (we leverage a single source of truth on know what's happening and 'who knows who')
• Common processes and tools (we are one)
• Agile, measurable results (we are fast and adaptive)

Results: 

1. Cooperate vs. compete: client connected, educated and then leveraged multiple NGO, Gov’t and advocacy networks to support the recyclability potential of PET plastics. 
2. Cost savings: PET bottles were exempted from the single use plastics category avoiding a potential loss of ~USD $52m on re-packaging alternatives.
3. Reputation gains: the client avoided the reputation hit it had on sugar taxes and made positive reputational gains on the recycling topic compared to competitors.

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