PLASTIC RECAPTURE
Since 2008, the Azulita Project has partnered with residents, NGOs and businesses to recapture waste plastic in the United States and Mexico. For more than a decade, Azulita’s flagship recapture program focused on 60 miles of Pacific Ocean shoreline in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Without easy access to free or affordable waste facilities, much of the community's used plastic ends up along roadways, burned, or discarded in open pits.
With the help of dedicated volunteers, Azulita team members collect waste from beaches and waterways, clean and bale the plastic, and prepare the plastic for transport to certified recycling plants or third-party buyers who transform the plastic into consumer goods.
In 2024, Azulita donated the collection facility equipment, including a plastic baler and forklift, to a local business in the nearby beachtown of Saladita so that they could manage and oversee this work.
Azulita’s International Plastic Recapture Efforts
Azulita Project began providing grant funding to WILDCOAST/COSTASALVAJE to support their “Community Engagement to Reduce Plastics in the Binational Lower Tijuana River Watershed” project in 2024. Focused on the El Pato neighborhood of Tijuana, this project engages thousands of K-12 and university students in education events such as cleanups, speaking events, and workshops related to recycling and reduction of single use plastics in Mexico.
This initiative also offers community recycling workshops and clean-ups, recruits and trains community debris collectors in the El Pato neighborhood, and supports WILDCOAST’s ongoing plastic collector booms that are strategically placed in ocean-bound inner-city waterways in the Tijuana metropolitan area. Azulita is honored to help such a well-established organization achieve and expand their program goals
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The Azulita Project's recapture program kept well over 500 tons (1,000,000 pounds), of plastic from polluting the Pacific Ocean since its inception in 2008.
Azulita’s Plastic Collection Facility in Los Llanos, Mexico
The rural town of Los Llanos in the state of Guerrero is located approximately 23 miles north of the city of Zihuatanejo on the Pacific coast. It has a population of fewer than 1,000 people, but is somewhat of a hub for several nearby mountain towns and beach communities.
The local economy is rooted in agriculture—primarily coconuts and mangos—and is supplemented by ocean fishing and tourism. Playa Saladita is a beach community about 2 miles from Los Llanos. Fishing plays an important role in this community, and its beautiful beaches offer top-class surfing.
Between 2008-2024, Azulita’s Los Llanos project
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incentivized buy-back of used plastics
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built and maintained recycling bins throughout the community
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sorted and compressed waste plastic into bales
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sold waste plastic to responsible third-party buyers
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educated and engaged local youth
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encouraged local businesses to be responsible about plastic use