January 26th is World Environmental Education Day, whose main objective is to identify environmental issues both globally and locally and raise awareness about the need for participation in conserving and protecting the environment.
Its objective is to develop a global population that is aware of and concerned about the environment and associated problems, and that has the knowledge, aptitude, attitude, motivation, and commitment to work individually and collectively to find solutions to existing problems and prevent new ones. The main objective is to emphasize the importance of environmental education as a scientific discipline that specializes in understanding the social dimension of environmental problems and in creating the awareness, knowledge, skills, and motivation to address, resolve, and prevent them.
One of the main commitments of the Bepensa Foundation is to care for the environment, which is why we created our program ReQPET, focused on raising awareness of the urgent need to protect the environment through the recovery, separation, and proper disposal of PET waste in the communities where we operate.
The program began in 2010 with the participation of 22 schools in the city of Mérida. In 2014, the program formally launched in the states of Campeche and Quintana Roo. By 2022, we already have more than 1,100 collection points throughout the Yucatán Peninsula (750 ReQPET collection points and 350 collection points in the My Store Without Waste project) and have collected more than 1,300 tons of PET.
We also have the program Bioparque Bepensa, to raise awareness and educate children and young people on issues of conservation, ecology, biodiversity, and sustainability. The Biopark consists of a 10,000-square-meter green demonstration area where various actions and examples of ecological responsibility can be seen, such as reforestation, the care of endemic species of flora and fauna, the recycling of materials, the use of alternative energy sources, and the reuse of water from wastewater treatment processes. This project is focused on schools so that new generations can learn about, see, and experience an environmentally friendly space and become familiar with it to put it into practice in their daily lives.
It is important to know the causes and effects of climate change, be aware that sustainable development is the way to satisfy the current needs of people without compromising the capacity of future generations and that protecting the environment is taking care of our own survival
