Queretaro Among Trash

Opportunity Identification

“Queretaro among trash”

1. Description of the social issue

1. Characteristics

Querétaro, according to “El Economista” is one of the states that produces more trash in Mexico. A study from the INEGI says that in a day is collected on average 1,200,430 million kilograms of garbage generated by houses, parks, companies, etc. These studies were made in 2011, the INEGI mentioned that compare to 2009, the amount of trash increase 17%. Now we are in 2016 and obviously the garbage is still increasing because there is more population every day in Querétaro and consequently more trash is generated.

But is curious because Queretaro has always being considered one of the cleanest states in the country. How can be this possible if we generated those amounts of trash? That´s because the government ensures that the city always states “clean”. And I say “clean” because they only makes sure that the downtown and the principal streets and avenues remain clean all day, but no the poor and medium colonies or the corners of the city. They clean only the spots were more people is concentrated, but those other places were the trash is visible are also important.

1. Impacts

This problem has two principal impacts: the social and the ecological. Is important to understand that this problem is caused by humans. So if a city starts accumulating garbage increasingly, that means that the citizens have no conscience for this problem, and that’s a social impact, people will start being less and less conscious and more trash will be generated, and with big amounts of trash more problems can be created like diseases, infections, bad smells, pests and insects, etc. And for long term impacts will be that if the city is dirty, then people who has the possibilities will leave the city and those who don’t have the resources to leave will stay there but with more problems like, delinquency, poorness, etc.

For the ecological impacts, some waste will eventually rot (organic trash) and in the process it may generate methane gas, which is explosive and contributes to the greenhouse effect. Plastic waste tend to produce toxic substances, such as dioxins, when they are burnt. Gases from incineration may cause air pollution and contribute to acid rain, while the ash from incinerators may contain heavy metals and other dangerous toxins.

We are only creating problems for the next generations, there life will become more complicated and with lower quality because of our decisions.

1. Importance in Mexico

As I mentioned before people around the world people has no conscious about this kind of social issues. In Mexico we have many social problems, trash is one of them and also lack of conscience. Maybe right now is not a big issue, or at least we can’t see it, but in a couple of years the problem can be so big that it would be almost impossible to solve. If we don’t start thinking in a way to change it or solve it, as I mentioned before the society will have to fight to these kind of issues or the world would collapse, the pollution will increase and the life will get complicated for us and the next generations.