Eco boat plan for Mexico City tourist zone

Mexico City's government plans to provide the tourist zone of the Xochimilco canals with environmentally friendly boats and barges and to gradually substitute the usual wooden ones, which have high maintenance costs.

Mauricio Leon, director of infrastructure, modernisation and innovation for the Federal District, unveiled the plan for the owners of traditional gondola-like non-motorised boats to form a co-operative to gradually replace them.

Leon says the wooden vessels, formerly used to transport goods but now dedicated almost exclusively to tourism, constitute "an enormous expense" since they must be renovated every year due to the deterioration of the water in the canals and the fungi it contains that degrades the wood.

Created by scientists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, the so-called "techno-ecological boat" preserves the typical characteristics that have made it a symbol of Mexico worldwide.

The great advantage is that the new boat - called a "trajinera" - is made of recycled PET plastic (canal-polluting water and shampoo bottles and plastic bags), polyethylene and volcanic clay, a compound that provides the boats with greater durability and stability.

Since they are made of recycled material, unlike the traditional ones for which 20 trees have to be cut down to make each one, they are much cheaper, require less maintenance and their durability is much greater - they can last as long as 120 years.

The problem is the cost of the machinery, Leon says, so the ideal solution is for the oarsmen to form "a co-operative able to get financing for the machines," which cost some five million pesos ($A411,144).

This is a long-term plan, because when the machines are installed, they can produce from three to four boats a week, and in Xochimilco there are currently 1500.