Playa del Carmen, Q.R. — German made equipment will be used this year to turn Playa del Carmen sargassum into fuel. Lourdes Várguez, the Secretary of Sustainable Environment and Climate Change, says the equipment will be tested to take advantage of the municipality’s unwanted seaweed.
Várguez says the sargassum will be used beyond soil fertilizer, which is what is it mostly being converted into now by a local company.
She says tests with the specially designed equipment will allow them to take advantage of the sargassum as a source of fuel and carbon. While she did not provide details on the equipment or the project itself, she did say that the innovation represents a significant effort to address the sustainably problem by finding useful applications for this abundant resource.
“Currently it is used as a soil fertilizer, but this year we hope to go one step further,” she said.
To comprehensively address the challenge of sargassum from its collection to its use in various applications, the municipal government seeks initiatives for the use of seaweed as an important step toward environmental sustainability in Solidaridad.
The 2024 sargassum season is expected to be comparable to last year when 26,400 tons was collected and more than 13,000 tons of sand recovered and returned to municipal beaches.
