Plastic waste remains one of the most pressing environmental challenges facing Mexico today, posing serious issues for ecosystems, communities, and waste management systems. However, a newly formed collaboration between organizations and industry leaders aims to tackle this problem by finding innovative ways to transform one of the most difficult-to-recycle types of plastic into a material that can be reused.
Canadian company Aduro Clean Technologies has teamed up with Mexico’s packaging industry association, ECOCE, to develop innovative methods for recycling flexible and multilayer plastic packaging. This includes items such as wrappers, pouches, and films, which frequently end up in landfills due to the difficulty of processing them through conventional recycling systems. The collaboration aims to tackle these hard-to-recycle materials and create more sustainable solutions for the packaging industry.
According to industry sources, several organizations are currently exploring Aduro Clean Technologies’ Hydrochemolytic Technology (HCT), an innovative chemical process designed to tackle complex plastic waste. This technology works by breaking down difficult-to-recycle plastics and transforming them into reusable liquid hydrocarbons, which can then be repurposed for various industrial applications.
Operating at moderate temperatures, HCT uses specialized catalysts to decompose the plastic materials into smaller, more valuable molecules, offering a potentially efficient and sustainable solution for managing plastics that cannot be processed through conventional recycling systems. By converting waste into usable resources, this technology could significantly reduce landfill contributions and help promote a circular economy in the plastics sector.
According to Packaging Insights, Aduro stated that independent testing has demonstrated the material produced through their process is “comparable to conventional fossil feedstocks,” offering essential building blocks for creating new plastics. By converting plastic waste into these reusable components, the technology helps keep existing materials in circulation, reducing the need to extract new fossil resources and supporting more sustainable production practices in the plastics industry.
Mexico produces an estimated 6 to 7 million metric tons of plastic waste each year, with flexible packaging alone contributing around 1.5 million metric tons surpassing even PET beverage containers. Unlike rigid plastics, flexible packaging typically consists of multiple layers of polymers, inks, and adhesives, which makes mechanical recycling challenging and often economically unfeasible. As a result, a significant portion of this material currently lacks a viable solution for end-of-life management, leading to its disposal in landfills or incineration.
Aduro’s HCT technology could be a game-changer for managing Mexico’s plastic waste, lowering cleanup costs, reducing plastic pollution linked to health risks, and creating safer, more sustainable waste management practices. By converting hard-to-recycle plastics into reusable resources, the partnership with ECOCE could ease landfill pressure, cut pollution, and strengthen recycling systems nationwide. With global plastic pollution reaching 19–23 million metric tons annually, innovations like this highlight how technology can address even the most challenging waste streams.
Adrián Velasco of ECOCE emphasized that their goal is to turn flexible and multilayer packaging into a circular resource that benefits communities, supports brands, and advances the circular economy.
12 March 2026
12 March 2026
12 March 2026
12 March 2026
