PLASTIC RECAPTURE
Since 2008, the Azulita Project has focused on removing waste plastic from the environment and diverting plastic from the landfill.
Today, most of Azulita’s plastic recapture and diversion work is completed in partnership with a variety of organizations, including community groups, other nonprofits, and businesses located in Azulita’s two service areas of Flagstaff, Arizona, and the Playa Saladita/Los Llanos region of Guerrero, Mexico.
Azulita’s International Plastic Recapture Efforts
In Partnership with Proyecto Saladita
A goal of Azulita Project’s international plastic collection work in Guerrero, Mexico, was to provide a program framework that other grassroots organizations could adopt. In 2025, that dream became a reality with the formation of Proyecto Saladita in Playa La Saladita, Guerrero.
Inspired by Azulita Project’s decade of work in the Los Llanos/Saladita region, Proyecto Saladita represents the next chapter of local conservation—guided by community leadership, built on experience, and powered by people who care. Azulita Project provided key guidance to the Proyecto Saladita team during their nonprofit incorporation process, organizational development, and initial program visioning. This deep partnership continues through ongoing organizational mentorship and grant funding.
The Binational Lower Tijuana River Watershed
Azulita Project provided grant funding to WILDCOAST/COSTASALVAJE to support their “Community Engagement to Reduce Plastics in the Binational Lower Tijuana River Watershed” project in 2024-2026. Focused on the El Pato neighborhood of Tijuana, this project engages thousands of K-12 and university students in education events such as cleanups, speaking events, and workshops related to recycling and reduction of single use plastics in Mexico.
This initiative also offers community recycling workshops and clean-ups, recruits and trains community debris collectors in the El Pato neighborhood, and supports WILDCOAST’s ongoing plastic collector booms that are strategically placed in ocean-bound inner-city waterways in the Tijuana metropolitan area. Azulita is honored to help such a well-established organization achieve and expand their program goals
.png)
Azulita’s Plastic Collection Facility in Los Llanos, Mexico
The Azulita Project's Los Llanos recapture program kept well over 500 tons (1,000,000 pounds) of plastic from polluting the Pacific Ocean since its inception in 2008.
For more than a decade, Azulita’s flagship recapture program focused on 60 miles of Pacific Ocean shoreline in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Without easy access to free or affordable waste facilities, much of the community's used plastic ended up along roadways, burned, or discarded in open pits.
With the help of dedicated volunteers, Azulita team members collected waste from beaches and waterways, cleaned and baled the plastic in Azulita’s processing facility, and prepared the plastic for transport to certified recycling plants or third-party buyers who transformed the plastic into consumer goods.
Azulita retired its Los Llanos plastic collection program in 2024. Today, this important work is being continued by the Mexican nonprofit organization Proyecto Saladita (founded in 2025). Azulita is proud to provide ongoing mentorship and support to Proyecto Saladita as they carry on and expand Azulita’s mission to reduce plastic pollution.
Between 2008-2024, Azulita’s Los Llanos project
​
-
incentivized buy-back of used plastics
​
-
built and maintained recycling bins throughout the community
​
-
sorted and compressed waste plastic into bales
​
-
sold waste plastic to responsible third-party buyers
​
-
educated and engaged local youth
​
-
encouraged local businesses to be responsible about plastic use