The Mexico City Congress approved reforms to identify and remove 30,000 tons [1] of defunct cabling across the city.
This measure addresses a long-standing public safety hazard. Abandoned wires often clutter utility poles and hang over streets, creating significant risks for pedestrians and emergency services during disasters.
Legislator Cecilia Badillo pushed for the reforms, which the Congress approved in June 2024. The initiative targets the accumulation of wiring that companies typically leave behind when customers switch service providers. Under previous conditions, these companies were not obligated to retrieve the old materials.
Badillo said that the amount of abandoned cabling in Mexico City is equivalent to three Eiffel Towers [1]. She said that 60% [1] of the existing cabling is no longer functional and should be considered waste.
A spokesperson for the Mexico City Congress said the new reforms officially recognize abandoned cabling as an urban risk factor and mandate its removal. The legislation aims to force service providers to take responsibility for the physical waste their infrastructure leaves in the public sphere.
City officials said that the cleanup is necessary for civil protection. The tangled webs of wire can obstruct firefighting equipment or collapse during seismic events, which are common in the region. By classifying the material as waste, the city can now apply stricter environmental and safety regulations to the companies responsible for the installations.
“"In CDMX there are 30 thousand tons of cables hanging, equivalent to 3 Eiffel Towers."”
This legislative shift moves the financial and operational burden of infrastructure cleanup from the municipality to the private telecommunications companies. By legally defining defunct wiring as urban waste and a safety risk, Mexico City creates a regulatory mechanism to penalize companies that neglect their physical footprint, potentially setting a precedent for other densely populated Latin American capitals facing similar infrastructure decay.
