The municipality of Villa de Tututepec de Melchor Ocampo, located in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, is crossed by various perennial and intermittent rivers, including the San Francisco River and the Río Verde. In particular, the Río Verde is a significant contributor to plastic pollution because it is the only outlet for the highly polluted Río Atoyac.
The 100st validated Waste Flow Diagram (WFD) study found that around 428 tonnes of plastic leak into the environment each year in Tututepec – equivalent to 11% of the municipality’s total plastic waste. Of this, 284 tonnes remain on land, 77 tonnes reach water systems, and 67 tonnes are openly burned.
The analysis highlights that more efficient and frequent collection services could significantly reduce plastic leakage. Practical steps include expanding waste collection fleets, setting up dedicated routes, providing containers, and ensuring waste is protected from rain and wind before pickup.
The case of Tututepec is one of several Mexican municipalities at the Costa de Oaxaca studied by the projects ‘Protection of Mexican coastal regions and their marine ecosystems through the reduction of plastic waste’ (PROCEP) and ‘Prevention of plastic waste in the seas of Central America and the Caribbean’ (Caribe Circular), implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, together with the project ‘Measures for the proper management of waste in communities on the Gulf of Mexico coast, with an emphasis on the recovery of materials and the reduction of plastic waste disposal in the ocean’ by the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC) to inform strategies to protect coasts and marine ecosystems from plastic waste. Find out more about the lessons learned at the Costa de Oaxaca here: https://wfd.rwm.global/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/WFD-Costa-de-Oaxaca-20240416.pdf.
Or directly access the Tututepec and the other Mexican case studies on the WFD data portal. https://wfd-data.rwm.global/index.php/map
