“My brother got into trouble. They arrested him and admitted him to the Puente Grande prison, in Guadalajara. Once I went to visit him and found that they were selling some bags. It occurred to me that he and the other prisoners could make them inside and make a profit with them," recalls Ricardo Mendoza Villagrana, general director of Artixu, the company that billed around 13.5 million pesos in 2017 from the sale of bags made. by hand with recycled plastic.
The company uses more than two tons of recycled material a week with which 100 prisoners produce bags in the Puente Grande and Lagos de Moreno prisons, in Jalisco.
The material is low density polyethylene, it is the most common to produce plastic bags of garbage . According to the Greenpeace association, in Mexico around 48 kilograms of plastic are consumed per person per year. If current consumption continues, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish, according to the United Nations.
Artixu also distributes clothing and textiles from three Puebla indigenous communities, Hueyapan in which 25 people collaborate, Huilacapixtla with the collaboration of a family of eight people, and San Gabriel Chilac, in which 50 indigenous people sell their products directly to them.
“They are bought at the price they indicate. The advantage is that we can sell much more volume.” Mendoza Villagrana points out.
Artixu has generated two brands from this diversification of products: IXU and Artizanat . The first sells indigenous textiles as well as bags produced by the prisoners. The second is focused only on selling hand-woven bags: "with this we cover two markets: those looking for a national and artisan product and one more oriented towards fashion and style."
The search for social equity does not end there. In industrial plastic recycling processes, Ricardo Mendoza seeks to employ women, single mothers or rehabilitated prisoners as a priority: “our best salesperson is the wife of a boy who was in prison. She does not have professional studies or anything, she is an ordinary person who we gave her a chance and she has achieved it."
“Every time we feel more committed and responsible because more families depend on us. However, this is what drives us, drives us forward and inspires us to develop our company,” says Viridiana Rodríguez Saavedra, the partner at Mendoza Villagrana who is in direct contact with the indigenous communities with whom they work.
The future is very clear for Villagrana: to market its products internationally, collaborate with all the states of the country and with at least 20 prisons, as well as help empower more young entrepreneurs.
A riskier expansion to e-commerce in which Amazon Handmade represents the first link and its virtual store a continuation, complete this vision: “Our online store has very little time and is in the testing phase. The idea is that in the coming weeks all the available articles will be found.” concludes.