Ecatepec, Mexico City’s sprawling neighbor, sets a Guinness World Record for trash collection

The municipality of Ecatepec successful México authorities acceptable a Guinness World Record connected Sunday for the astir participants successful a one-day nationalist trash-collection event, with 148,525 participants. 

Ecatepec, 1 of Mexico’s astir populous municipalities and a ample portion of the Mexico City metropolitan area, broke the erstwhile grounds of 146,700 national collectors acceptable successful 2018 by Tokyo, the world’s biggest city.

Ecatepec Mayor Azucena Cisneros accepts the Guinness World Record grant aft helium metropolis drew 148,525, beating the erstwhile grounds held by Tokyo, a metropolis astatine slightest 10 times the size of Ecatepec. (@azucenau/X)

The lawsuit was organized by the Ecatepec and México authorities governments. Mayor Azucena Cisneros Coss and Governor Delfina Gómez Álvarez encouraged members of civilian society, civilian associations and vicinity groups to articulation the effort. They besides participated themselves, showing up astatine the lawsuit with gloves, sacks and brooms to pb the “A Clean Ecatepec is Safer” campaign. 

“We arsenic adults, done example, tin nonstop this connection to our aboriginal generations: to enactment our trash successful its due place,” Governor Gómez said, stressing the request “to enactment for others.” 

Ecatepec is considered the astir unsafe metropolis successful México state, with implicit 90% of its residents reporting that they consciousness unsafe, according to Mexico’s nationalist statistic bureau INEGI. It is besides the astir polluted. “We indispensable each beryllium portion of the solution and lend truthful that successful Ecatepec determination is nary much garbage oregon neglect, and truthful that our metropolis is an illustration not of theft oregon filth, but of affirmative qualities,” Mayor Cisneros said successful a property league starring up to the challenge.

Organization was a large origin successful Ecatepec’s record-breaking mission. Between 2,000 and 8,000 radical gathered astir each of 73 wide postulation points, with 229 schools, churches and neighborhoods serving arsenic gathering points.

Participants lone had 15 minutes to cod arsenic overmuch trash arsenic imaginable from 73 postulation points. (@horacioduarteo/X)

Residents cleared trash from streets, plazas, gardens, median strips and nationalist thoroughfares successful areas specified arsenic the Tolotzin I vicinity adjacent to Grand Canal, Las Torres Avenue, the Tulpetlac enlargement and the Bicentenario sports analyzable successful the Hank González neighborhood.

Trash collecting started astatine 10 a.m. arsenic whistles were blown. At the end, Alfredo Arista Rueda, the authoritative Guinness World Records judge, announced that Ecatepec had breached the satellite grounds and presented the grant to Cisneros.

The politician congratulated those who took part. “When you want, you tin unite a assemblage and alteration things, particularly breaking stigmas,” she said, “Ecatepec is simply a assemblage that seeks to alteration its environment.”

With reports from Milenio and La Jornada