Rats "freely roam" Mexico City's prestige avenue

Rats recently became an unwelcome sight on Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma, the emblematic avenue hosting corporate offices and prestige hotels and flats. In parts of the avenue notably outside the Four Seasons Hotel by the Chapultepec park, this was blamed on unspecified locals leaving food on the pavement or stuck on trees, supposedly for the birds and squirrels, El Sol de México reported on 7 February. "That's what the rats eat," a local resident told the daily. Pockets of greenery, scarce and overflowing bins and the abundance of fast-food chains and eateries were other factors making this a desirable area for the critters. Another paper, Milenio, observed on their strolling about "in full daylight."

Destruction of the Amazon slowed, somewhat, under Lula da Silva

Satellite pictures showed an 8.7% reduction in Amazonian deforestation in Brazil in 2025 compared to 2024, with a total of just over 3,800 square kilometres cut down or burned that year, Brazil's INPE or National Institute of Space Research revealed in January. There was a similar, nine per cent year-on-year drop in the destruction rate of the Cerrado, a grasslands region listed as a unique ecosystem, Mexico's La Jornada reported on 9 January, citing INPE. This was the first time deforestation dropped simultaneously in both environmental zones even if the area destroyed "remained twice the size of Sao Paulo," the paper observed. It attributed the decline clearly to policies of the administration led by the socialist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as rainforest destruction peaked at over 10,000 square kilometres in 2022, the last year of the presidency of the rightist Jair Bolsonaro. The Brazilian state most successful in this regard in 2025 was Pará in northern Brazil, which cut deforestation by 36%. The government wants to end Amazonian deforestation entirely by 2030. 

Mexico City residents "ignoring" trash separation rules..

Trash collectors in parts of Mexico City said on 3 January that city residents were slow or reluctant to comply with new trash separation rules meant to ease recycling and reduce the amount of trash sent into the city's dumps. The new rules came into force in 2026. One truck driver told El Sol de Mexico that judging by the unseparated trash he was collecting in the central Doctores district and additional trash illegally left on pavements, nothing had changed. This was in spite of the city's information campaigns to explain the concept of separation. For now, trash collectors had to work extra as garbage trucks were not being let into processing plants (Estaciones de transferencia) with unseparated trash. Sandra Gazca, a spokeswoman for the Vida Circular (Circular Life) information initiative told the daily however that a 2025 study indicated that 52% of city residents did recycle trash. Legislation to enforce separation began in 2004, with a second city law in 2017 to define the concepts of organic, inorganic and recyclable, the daily reported.

Colombian government says it curbed deforestation in 2025

Colombia's government claimed the rate of destruction of its Amazonian rainforest fell 25% in the first nine months of 2025 compared to that period in 2024. The state body monitoring deforestation, IDEAM, noted the removal of some 36,300 hectares (or 363 square kilometres) of forest canopy between January and the end of September, compared to 48,500 hectares the previous year, Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported on 31 December. Almost all deforestation in Colombia happens in the departments of Meta, Caquetá, Guaviare and Putumayo, and mainly caused by the expansion of farming, cattle farming or coca cultivation into the rainforest. The report attributed the partial success to a range of initiatives including reforestation programs and collaboration with local communities.

Uber-type services squeezing out Mexico City's taxis..

Mexico City's transportation chief announced on 24 December that the Mexican capital would invest in upgrading its taxi fleet to help it meet the "unfair competition" of ride hailing services like Uber, in time for the the 2026 soccer world cup. The city's Mobility Secretary Héctor García Nieto said at an event to scrap 300 outdated vehicles that the taxi fleet had "more han halved," from 150,000 taxis to 60,000, as drivers no longer found it worth their while to even maintain their cars, La Jornada reported. The city, he said, would offer cash aid to drivers for repairs or to buy electric vehicles, create an application (Taxi CDMX), tighten regulations and security measures for drivers and passengers and replace at least 1,000 existing vehicles. The city's mayoress, Clara Brugada, speaking at the same venue, said "we're going to modernize the technology so city taxis have an application that works and is competitive." She said about 600,000 city residents used taxis every day, with about one million trips made daily.

Christmas brings more trash to Mexico City...

The mayoress of Mexico City urged Christmas shoppers to ease up on gift wrapping and curb a seasonal rise of up to 25% in the 8,500 tons of trash the city produces daily. Kickstarting a sustainable Christmas campaign, authorities were setting up over 50 modules in shopping centres around the Mexican capital to provide shoppers with recycled paper to wrap gifts, La Jornada reported on 18 Decembre. "The aim is to be together and have fun, not produce more trash," Clara Brugada said, speaking inside the Reforma 222 shopping and residential complex. The city's chief environmental officer, Julia Álvarez Icasa, said Christmas was an "environmental challenge" for a city with over nine million residents but also an opportunity to offer people "responsible alternatives." Brugada recalled the city's plans to enforce trash separation at home in 2026. 

Bogotá producing record amounts of trash

The Colombian capital may come to generate well over two million tons of solid trash in 2025, which authorities said was a record. The city was now producing over 6,300 tons of trash every day, exceeding the more than 6,100 tons a day produced in 2024 and around 6,000 tons daily for 2023, El Espectador reported on 14 December, citing the firm running the city's main dump. The city had already generated over 1.92 million tons of trash this year and was expected to beat the 2024 figure of over 2.2 million tons. The figures showed an urgent need for trash management and especially separation, according to the manager of the Doña Juana landfill, Andrea Pérez Cadavid. Observers warned the capital, with a population over over 8.4 million, could face a trash crisis after 11 February 2026, as trash disposal firms' existing contracts end and a "competitive" phase begins in which concessinoary firms could select service sectors and opt for more lucrative parts of the city.

Destruction of the Amazon rainforest "relentless"

The Amazon rainforest was losing an area the size of six soccer pitches every minute, according to estimates by the World Wildlife Fund and the MapBiomas mapping project, mainly due to illegal felling and mining, and farming. Environmentalists believe the rainforest, spread across several countries, lost 88 million hectares (or 880,000 square kilometers) between 1985 and 2023, with consequences for the climate and especially rainfall far beyond the region, the website Infobae reported on 29 October. The destructive rate, it stated, citing data from the Global Forest Watch, had made Latin America the global leader in rainforest destruction.

Mexico's tobacco taxes fuel black market in cigarettes

A fifth of all cigarettes smoked in Mexico was "illegal or semi-legal," likely as a result of increasing taxes and curbs on smoking, media reported on 28 October, citing research by the Colegio de México, a public university. Its ongoing study on the causes of social misconduct found that the proportion of black-market cigarettes rose from eight per cent in 2017 to 20% in 2023, the national paper La Jornada reported. The study's coordinator, Manuel Pérez, linked this to rising taxes on smoking, naming 2011 as a turning point when the state hiked them 30%. On 28 October, Mexico's Senate approved another round of taxes on cigarettes, soft drinks and 'violent videogames,' with amendments to the IEPS or Law for a Special Tax on Production and Services. Beside taxes, in January 2023, Mexico banned smoking and vaping in all public spaces including parks and beaches as well as relevant advertising.  The BBC described this then as one of the strictest regimes anywhere governing smoking, effectively confining it to homes, even if enforcement might prove problematic. It could, it observed, prompt police harassment or acts of petty corruption.

Medellín wants to turn city dump into "showcase" recycling site

The Medellín municipality is to turn the La Pradera trash dump, some 50 kilometers outside the city, into a "technologial and environmental park" set to recycle "about 40%" of the department of Antioquia's solid refuse into products including fuel and compost. The project was to become a model of recycling and reuse for both Colombia and the continent, the city's mayor, Federico Gutiérrez Zuluaga, was quoted as saying on 18 September. He said this recycling project should prolong the site's useful life, allow it to receive 3,500 tons or 80% of the department's entire trash every day, but also establish a new model of disposing of refuse. The timespan for the project was not yet clear though the mayor suggested the site might be producing biogas for some 200,000 homes in the department by around 2027. The city government has in recent months sought to teach residents to separate household trash, by means including door-to-door visits and recitals to accompany garbage collection.

Mexico bans range of pesticides, and more in 2026

The government of Mexico announced a ban in early September of 35 pesticide compounds being used in farming, calling this a 'historic' second step from the last such ban in 1991, which affected 21 pesticides. President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo told the press on 3 September that many of the pesticides, like DDT, had long been banned elsewhere but were still being used in Mexico. The ban was on the "use, production, sale and importation" of 35 compounds, which the country's Agriculture and Rural Development minister, Julio Berdegué Sacristán said in turn had been tagged as harmful in several international texts (Basel, Stokholm, Rotterdam conventions, etc..). Sheinbaum said the government would publish two more blacklists in 2026 and 2027. The chemicals banned included Aldicarb, used in citrus and sugar cultivations, and Carbuforan, used for cotton, coffee and avocado, Spain's El País reported.

Mexico City swapping recyclable trash for produce and basic items

The government of Mexico City was to hold one of its 'bartering' or swap markets on 19 October, wherein residents trade their recyclable trash for foodstuffs including fresh vegetables. The fairs' dates and locations are changeable though tending to take place every week or fortnight since 2025. This one was scheduled for the morning hours, inside the Chapultepec park. The markets are part of the city's bid to boost trash separation and recycling habits in the population, El Sol de México reported on 16 October. Its government wants to halve the amount of trash sent to landfills by 2030, within its Basura cero or Zero Trash agenda. 

Mexico City to enforce trash separation in homes

Mexico City will gradually enforce trash separation at source from January 2026, aiming to halve the refuse sent into landfills by 2030, and recover and reuse as much as possible. The city's mayoress, Clara Brugada, said all schools, offices and households would have to divide their trash into organic, recyclables and non-recyclables from 1 January, and the city had two months to prepare people for what she said was "no minor task," the website Animal político reported on 8 October. The city, with a population exceeding 9.2 million people, reportedly generates 8,600 tons of trash daily. This was less than the 12,900 tons reported as produced daily in 2016. Brugada said the city would boost its collecting and recycling budget, with the goal of composting organic trash and turning non-organic materials into final products ranging from fuel to tarmac, acoustic padding and the like. The city has vowed to cut its carbon emissions 35% over an unspecified time. The environmental organization Greenpeace warned on 7 October that government-backed initiatives favoring reuse or recycling of plastic - and often praised as part of a sustainable or circular economy - were often ploys to prevent moves to curb relentless plastic production in line with big-business interests. As was pointed out in 2016, the Mexican capital's problem was not recycling, but the sheer amount of trash the city 'spewed out' every day.

Mexico claims advances in plastic recycling

The plastic sector in Mexico claimed it had made "better than expected" progress in recycling a range of plastics and reducing plastic pollution, just over five years after a voluntary pact between the state and several organizations representing the sector. Notably, the sector stated it had eliminated microplastics in cosmetic products and stopped producing 35,000 tons of "unnecessary plastics," the website Animal político reported on 17 September, citing the fifth annual report of ANNEP (or the National Pact for the New Plastic Economy in Mexico). The report observed a 63% recovery rate for PET plastics nationally, which exceeded the rate in the European Union (56%), with a 34% recovery rate for all plastic types. It stated that in 2024, 24% of the plastic used in all packacing was now recycled, and noted the increasing use of packaging labelled as biodegradable and of deposit-return systems to reuse containers. The report claimed firms had altogether stopped using microplastics as cleansing or exfoliant agents. Its figures were based on information given by 77 firms (representing 51% of the sector) participating in the pact, with actual recycling figures possibly being higher. 

Mexico produces roughly 12,000 tons of recyclable plastic trash (packaging, PET, HDPE, LDPE) every day, of which just under 2,500 tons are from Mexico City, according to Greenpeace Mexico and the country's environment ministry. 

Mexico City, Oaxaca vote to ban single-use plastics

The legislature of Mexico City voted on 10 May to ban the "use and distribution" of disposable plastics in the capital from 2020. Almost all members voted to gradually enforce the ban, intended to reduce the mountain of trash the city generates daily. Similar measures being enacted across Mexico typically affect items like bags, straws, styrofoam trays or coffee lids. Mexico City would allow shops to hand out bags if these could degrade entirely within 90 days of disposal, though it was not clear if such bags presently exist in Mexico. The measure will include coffee capsules from 2021, Milenio reported. The state of Puebla also voted on 24 April to ban disposable plastics from 2020, first enforcing the measure in the state capital Puebla, with a population of 1.6 million. Both states would complement the bans with informative campaigns. The southern state of Oaxaca and eastern state of Tabasco have also approved restrictions. Oaxaca voted a gradual ban in early April, with enforcement beginning in government offices, which could no longer buy, use or distribute throwaway plastics, the website Prensa Latina reported on 15 April. Greenpeace in Mexico estimated in early 2019 that the country produced some 10,000 tonnes of plastic trash daily.

Plastic straws, bag production "falling" in Mexico

A spokesman for the plastics sector in Mexico recently said "more than 60 per cent" of manufacturers of plastic straws had disappeared in the country, due to falling demand and anti-plastic campaigns. Aldimir Torres, president of the National Association of Plastic Industries (ANIPAC) told a conference in early April that some 80 initiatives were targeting plastics products in Mexico, but insisted the sector believed recycling remained the best way to curb pollution by plastics, El Financiero reported. He said bag makers in Mexico were now working at between "30 and 70 per cent capacity," and the sector had already shed 8.5 per cent of its workers, for falling demand. Hidalgo and Guerrero became two more Mexican states in late March to legislate against plastic products. State lawmakers in Hidalgo voted to give shops 180 days to implement a plastics ban approved in 2018, the website Xataka México reported. In Guerrero, legislators reformed the state's trash disposal laws to forbid "the use of" plastic bags and "provision" of single-use items like straws, cutlery and styrofoam trays, Xataka reported. It was not immediately clear when this would happen and whether or not the ban covered selling the items.

New York State bans plastic grocery bags from 2020

The state of New York has banned the distribution of single-use plastic bags after 1 March 2020, media reported on 31 March, becoming the second U.S. state with California, to impose a state-wide ban. The measure passed by its legislature that day was part of the state budget for 2020, and includes other environmental measures like making cars pay to enter mid-town Manhattan. The ban would presumably supercede the bag fee New York city imposed in 2016. A third U.S. state, Hawaii, and a number of districts restrict bags through local legislation.

Mexican state starts enforcing plastics ban

The state of Tamaulipas in north-eastern Mexico began enforcing a ban on the sale and distribution of plastic bags on 1 January, following a vote by the state legislature in September 2018. The ban was on the distribution of bags that did not contain at least 30 per cent degradable material, though press and agency reports did not specify if businesses could make or access such bags. Reports suggested authorities would not yet fine offending outlets in the state's 43 districts, stating there would be inspections initially to verify compliance. Tamaulipas became the fourth state in Mexico (after Querétaro, Veracruz and Baja California Sur) to restrict plastics or plastic bags, as papers reported Durango, Sonora, Nuevo León and Mexico City as working on similar restrictions. The legislature of the state of Quintana Roo on the Caribbean was also considering amending local laws to restrict or ban plastic bags and straws, La Jornada reported on 7 January.

Bogotá rolls out new, streetside trash containers

The Bogotá city government began placing new trash containers around the capital in late November, and was observing their usage in an initial adaptation phase. The containers, as shown on news websites, were very similar to those used in Spanish cities like Barcelona and Valencia, and require residents to bin their trash outside buildings. The city government believes they are cleaner and will encourage people to separate trash, and intends to place 10,744 containers around the capital. These have either white lids, for recyclables like plastic, paper and cans, or black lids, for all other trash including food remains. The broadcaster Caracol noted on Christmas Day that some residents were already confused by or indifferent to the distinction, as certain bins contained the wrong sort of rubbish. Others had been vandalized or sprayed, though "no more than one per cent," according to the head of trash collection at the Special Administrative Unit for Public Services, the office running various city services, Yanlicer Pérez.

Industrialist says anti-plastic campaigns in Mexico "hitting" sector

Public campaigns in Mexico against straws and plastic bags were changing consumption patterns and "hurting" the industry, a sector spokesman was reported as saying on 22 December. Aldimir Torres Arenas, head of the National Association of Plastic Industries (ANIPAC), said campaigns like the Environment Ministry (SEMARNAT)'s "Fine Without a Straw" were hitting firms' revenues "by 10 and up to 30 per cent" and one firm had already shut, the daily Publimetro reported. He said "we recognize there is a solid waste problem reaching our forests, streets and seas," referring to massive worldwide accumulation of trash on land and seas. But he warned curbing consumption would affect jobs, and said packacing represents "47 per cent of the national GDP." Plastic, he said, was a "technological marvel" and costly resource that should not be wasted. The daily gave 650 as the average number of plastic bags a Mexican uses every year, and reported sales of plastics to be worth $30 billion a year.