Translated by Schools for Chiapas, in collaboration with Avispa Mídia
On June 29th, Puebla Governor Alejandro Armenta broke ground on the expansion of the highway connecting Amozoc to San José de Chiapa, marking the start of infrastructure tied to the Circular Economy Hub for Well-being in Puebla (Podecibi Puebla: Development Hub for Economic Well-being – Circular Economy Hub for Well-being- is a federal and state megaproject for reindustrialization). In the days that followed, residents of the municipality also reported tree-clearing and the fencing-off of the plots designated for this state project.
That same day, the Movement in Defense of Water, Land, and Life of San José de Chiapa denounced the entry of roughly 200 state police patrol units and riot units into the area. Various organizations, including El Nodo de Derechos Humanos (the Human Rights Node) sounded the alarm and called on civil society to remain alert to possible acts of repression in the municipality.
Against this backdrop, this past Sunday (the 5th), residents of San José de Chiapa held a march near the project site — a march that was interrupted by alleged members of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and other unions, who set up a blockade to stop it from advancing. In response, the Movement denounced repeated acts of intimidation against its members, along with the government's use of these union organizations to simulate community acceptance of the project and to harass those who oppose it.
The Developers
The Puebla Circular Economy Hub for Well-being (Podecibi Puebla) was created through an agreement decreed by the federal government on February 19, 2026, declaring a 40.428-hectare area — divided into three plots — for the development of an industrial complex focused on waste processing.
So far, the federal government has publicly disclosed the participation of five companies that will install plants at this Circular Economy Hub, all of them dedicated to processing urban and industrial waste. Two are foreign firms: the first, Greenback Recycling Technologies, is a British corporation that converts recyclable plastics through microwave-induction pyrolysis. Greenback already operates its first plant in Mexico, in Cuautla, Morelos, in partnership with Nestlé.
Dutch Clean Tech, for its part, is a Dutch company specializing in wastewater treatment and organic waste processing. Like Greenback, Dutch Clean Tech has also been operating in Mexico for close to a year, after signing letters of intent with the governments of Tamaulipas and Quintana Roo to develop wastewater and industrial treatment projects.
A third developer at Podecibi Puebla is TuzaGreen, a company formed in Mexico in partnership with two U.S. firms, HighTech and Asphalt Plus, which produces asphalt and similar materials from used tires.
Two more Mexican companies round out the project: Proambi, dedicated to technology recycling, and Petgas, which specializes in producing fuels made from non-recyclable plastics. Finally, the Mexican transnational Cemex — which already carries a long list of complaints over environmental damage and pollution from waste incineration — will be responsible for sorting and distributing the waste received at the Hub, as well as for the final disposal of non-recyclable materials.
According to the Decree Granting Tax Benefits in Circular Economy Development Hubs for Well-being, published July 4, 2025 in Mexico's Official Gazette (DOF), developers participating in the Podecibi projects can benefit from an immediate 100% deduction on investments in fixed assets, as well as additional deductions of 25% on training and technological innovation expenses.
Imposition
As residents of San José de Chiapa have repeatedly denounced, the Podecibi Puebla project omits substantial information about its development — it fails to specify how many tons of waste it plans to receive daily, or from how many municipalities that waste will come, and offers no clear information on how non-recyclable materials will be treated, their final disposal, or incineration methods.
The project also lacks an Environmental Impact Statement (MIA), because, according to the agreement that created it, the site does not fall within protected natural areas, conservation zones, or biological corridors. The same document, however, acknowledges that the area is crossed by the Eastern Basin Priority Hydrological Region (RHP-70), designated as a priority area for the conservation of Mesoamerican crops and bioclimatic corridors — meaning the project's planning should require environmental authorizations and measures to prevent ecological harm.
Last April, José Luis Samaniego Leyva, Undersecretary of Sustainable Development and Circular Economy at Mexico's Environment Secretariat (Semarnat), stated that the MIA had not been issued because the industrial park was still in its "design phase."
It's worth remembering that this same project was previously rejected — precisely over the risk of ecological damage — in the state of Hidalgo, when in December 2025, through a public referendum, residents of the municipalities of Tula, Atitalaquia, and Tlaxcoapan voted against building a Podecibi, then called the Ecological and Recycling Park.
Following that rejection, the project was relocated to San José de Chiapa, where it was created by decree without prior consultation, on the grounds — according to the decree signed on February 19 and published March 2 in the DOF — that no Indigenous population lives in the region. This claim has already been challenged by residents of San José de Chiapa, where Mexico's national statistics institute (INEGI) recognizes the presence of a Nahua population in the municipality.
A Dump on Top of a Dump
Near the area designated for the Puebla Circular Economy Hub, a privately managed sanitary landfill has existed for nearly ten years. According to an investigation by the citizen watchdog Institute for Municipal Management, Administration, and Coordination (IGAVIM), in 2018 the Puebla state government granted a 30-year concession to the company "Biosinergias Ambientales, S.A. de C.V." to operate this open-air dump, which began operations on February 10, 2021.
Initially, this intermunicipal landfill was designed to receive more than 300 metric tons of solid waste daily from nine municipalities in the region, including San José Chiapa, Acajete, Amozoc, Tepeaca, Mazapiltepec, Rafael Lara Grajales, Nopalucan, and Oriental; however, in the years following the start of operations, other municipalities were added. In the report *San José Chiapa: The Landfill as an Environmental Liability and a Hub for the Circular Economy*, IGAVIM notes that the landfill facility was generally constructed in accordance with relevant environmental regulations; however, it had deficiencies that became apparent shortly thereafter.
Today, there is no reliable data on the exact volume of solid waste the dump receives. The citizen watchdog also notes that regulations on the handling of biogas generated at the disposal site are not being met. The dump likewise has no emergency area for receiving urban solid waste and special-handling waste during natural disasters, fails to meet minimum waste compaction levels, and conducts no monitoring of biogas, leachate, or aquifer seepage. For all these reasons, IGAVIM concluded that the San José de Chiapa landfill operates at only 33% efficiency.
The organization insists that closing and remediating this landfill must come before any government proposal for waste management in the region, and warns that the Circular Economy Hub project fails to clearly address this environmental problem: "While the landfill under a 30-year concession has deficiencies, there are still no alternatives or improvement proposals from any government body, so the efficiency and proper management of the Podecibi can hardly be guaranteed," the report states.
For its part, the Movement in Defense of Water, Land, and Life of San José de Chiapa has also demanded the closure of this open-air dump while rejecting the construction of the Podecibi: "San José de Chiapa has no reason to take responsibility for those millions of tons of trash — it will not become Puebla state's sacrifice zone," the Movement stated in its latest communiqué.
