Cancun, Q.R. — The City of Cancun has signed a contract to turn its unwanted sargassum into fertilizer. The municipality has made an agreement with a local company to receive the unwanted seaweed and convert it into something useful.
The agreement was made between the City Council of Benito Juárez and Dianco-México, reported Héctor Romero, director of the company. He says his company, which is located between Cancun and Puerto Morelos, turns sargassum into organic fertilizer.
In their agreement, Dinaco will receive the city’s seaweed that workers collect from beaches. Romero says the plant has the capacity to deal with 600 tons a day. Converting the sargassum into organic fertilizer prevents it from being dumped or buried and thus, contaminating the soil and underwater table.
He said that nearly every crop producer needs to use fertilizer, but they use chemical fertilizers because there are no industrial level organic fertilizers, until now.
“Almost every crop producer needs to use organic, natural fertilizer, but most use chemical fertilizers because there was no one who produced organic fertilizer at an industrial level. We are the first company, proudly Mexican, to produce it and with sargassum,” he explained.
Romero says they are promoting their organic fertilizer to crop producers and are hoping to have recovered their investment capital within three to four years. He said they are also working on signing contracts with Puerto Morelos and Solidaridad for their sargassum.