Riviera Maya, Q.R. — A proposal to expand Cancun’s Green Patrols into the state’s other 10 municipalities is on the table. Alfonso Fernández Lemmen, the General Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (PPA) for Quintana Roo explained that although the program was not initially considered at state level, they want to expand it.
The city of Cancun has had success since the start of its Patrullas Verdes last month. Nearly a dozen people have been arrested and fined for illegal garbage dumping, a problem that plagues the entire state.
The city worked on the program this summer and finally got it up and running in November. Six patrols man the city’s dozens of clandestine garbage dumps. Days after they started patrolling, a dump truck driver was the first arrested and charged for emptying his truck of construction material in a green area. The man was brought before a Civic Judge and fined 8,000 pesos.
“There must be a dialogue so that the municipalities can implement this initiative. In the first days of its implementation in Cancun, sanctions were already imposed,” Fernández Lemmen said.
The Patrullas Verdes (Green Patrols) was started by the city of Cancun and is a program run by the city’s outsourced garbage collection company Solución Integral de Residuos Sólidos (Siresol).
Photo: Ayuntamiento de Benito Juárez December 2, 2024.
“The Green Patrols was a 100 percent municipal initiative of Cancun. We are allies of these green actions, so what will be done is to promote the program as a success story for other municipalities to implement it,” Fernández Lemmen explained.
Franz Ancira Martinez, the General Director of the Integral Solid Waste Solution (Siresol), says the program is part of the Comprehensive Solid Waste Solution to ensure that public areas are respected.
The program also works in coordination with the Procuraduría de Protección al Ambiente (PPA) or Environmental Protection Agency.
At the moment, there are six units carrying out surveillance, something the PPA sees as positive and a project that could be extended into the other municipalities.
