Turn Sargassum into Assets, Save $150M

Riviera Maya, QR — An agreement has been signed that will allow for the better utilization of Quintana Roo's sargassum next year. For the 2026 season, the government will push for the state's seaweed to be transformed into an asset.

Each seaweed season, the state of Quintana Roo spends billions to deal with the arrival of the unwanted sargassum. Throughout 2025, hotels across the state disbursed more than 2.7 billion pesos to keep their beaches clean of seaweed.

Tony Chávez, president of the Riviera Maya Hotel Association, said that Mexico receives approximately 45 million tourists each year, of which 22 million visit the state of Quintana Roo. Approximately 95 percent of the people living in the state depend on tourism, "so, that is the importance of this phenomenon, that it does not negatively impact tourism in a destination like the Mexican Caribbean," he stated.

He explained that the new agreement, which was signed earlier this month between the Mexican Institute for Research in Sustainable Fishing and Aquaculture (Imipas), the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Agriculture), the Riviera Maya Hotel Association (Ahrm), and The Seas We Love (TSWL), will convert sargassum into raw material for production.

According to Chávez, the hotels in the state spend approximately 150 million dollars annually to deal with the sargassum that arrives in Quintana Roo. The new initiative will help transform the sargassum into raw material now that they have greater scientific knowledge.

"Today, with the support of Imipas, we have greater scientific knowledge and institutional capacity to take advantage of this collaboration and turn it into an opportunity," he affirmed.

Ignacio Muñoz Gorbea, general director of The Seas We Love, said that the agreement "is a long-term collaboration commitment with the only federal government agency capable of managing sargassum, which is Imipas; what we seek is to safeguard the well-being and economic development of the people of Quintana Roo, both locals and tourists."

Muñoz Gorbea states that this technical cooperation will position Mexico as a leader in the Caribbean since the region generates millions of tons of sargassum annually. He says that Imipas will assume the responsibility of structuring a sargassum governance model and developing a value-added market.

Through this agreement, essential technical aspects will be defined, such as harvesting sites that allow for maximizing efficient use, innovation, and technology transfer through the development of sustainable fishing techniques and gear for sargassum collection, optimal harvesting periods, and the necessary conditions to provide certainty for industrial investments.

Chávez says that the state's tourism sector is advancing with a strategy coordinated with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), the Ministry of the Navy (Semar), and federal authorities to collect sargassum at sea before it reaches the coast.

He reported that for next year, they have set the goal of reducing its environmental and touristic impact by up to 80 percent. Chávez explained that from the beginning, the vision of the hotel sector has been to prevent sargassum from reaching the beaches since, in addition to affecting tourism, it also damages reefs, causes erosion, affects marine species, and generates millions of dollars in daily beach cleaning costs.

"If we manage to stop 80 percent of the sargassum in the open sea and only 20 percent reaches the coast, it would be a great success," he affirmed.

Chávez explained that currently, different permits are required to collect sargassum from the sea, transport it to land, and process it. These different permits come from different organizations such as Conapesca, the Ministry of Energy, Tourism, and Finance. "There are seven ministries involved; in December we asked them to simplify the procedures because we needed permits to collect it, transport it, process it, and convert it into fuel or fertilizer," he explained.

He said that as part of the plan, a plot of land donated by the state government to the federal government has been made available. This land will be used to create an industrial development hub where the collected sargassum will arrive and where the companies in charge of processing it would operate. He said that these companies could access tax incentives, including a 100 percent exemption, which would generate jobs and promote a marine bio-industry with clean energies.

The objective is to transform the sargassum into useful products like biofertilizers, biofuels, and alternative materials, which would position Mexico as a leader in the circular economy within the Caribbean.

He said that in the meantime, hotels continue to bear the brunt of the cost of dealing with the washed-up sargassum, an expense that over time has become "unsustainable. We cannot continue receiving these quantities on our coasts. We need permanent solutions," he affirmed.

The 2025 sargassum season ended approximately one month earlier than expected. The state government reported that by mid-October, 120,000 tons of seaweed had been collected from the beaches of Quintana Roo.