The City of Hermosillo, in the state of Sonora, Mexico, is redefining what inclusive and sustainable urban innovation looks like. Through Biciclando, an initiative that combines circular economy principles, women-led entrepreneurship, and sustainable mobility, the municipality is demonstrating how local action can accelerate global transformation.
Supported by UNDP through the 2021-2025 Global Mayors Challenge (GMC), Biciclando has evolved from a pandemic-era idea into a fully operational program, creating jobs, strengthening community engagement, and reducing the city’s environmental footprint.
The city presented its experience during a webinar held on November 12, 2025. The video recording of the event is available on our YouTube channel – in English, Spanish, and French.
Download the guidelines about Biciclando here.
Access to the data visualization about Biciclando here.
A local solution to global urban challenges
During the webinar, it was highlighted that local governments are facing rising pressures—from climate impacts to social inequalities and fast-growing urban populations. The challenges are particularly acute in areas with:
- Low recycling rates (Hermosillo recycled less than 2% of its waste)
- High dependence on private vehicles (35% of trips are motorized; only 5% by bicycle)
- Gendered mobility barriers (70% of women reported feeling unsafe cycling)
- Post-pandemic economic decline, with women disproportionately affected
The beginnings of Biciclando
Amid these pressures, the Municipal Planning Institute (IMPLAN) of Hermosillo and the city government began to imagine something different:
- What if recycling were not just a technical service, but a dignified job for women?
- What if waste collection could be done by bike, not by truck?
- And what if a single project could speak at once to climate action, mobility, gender equality, and local livelihoods?
The city designed Biciclando, a living urban laboratory where the circular economy is not a concept in a policy paper, but a daily routine performed on pedals and in conversation with neighbors.
What is Biciclando?
Biciclando is a women-led recycling service that uses electric-assist bicycles to collect recyclable materials directly from households, businesses, and public institutions. The program is anchored in the first Circular Economy Center (CEC) in Latin America, a facility built entirely from reused shipping containers and designed to serve as a hub for training, sorting, and community engagement.
The initiative advances eight SDGs simultaneously (1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13), while addressing urban poverty, gender inequalities, and environmental sustainability.
Its four strategic pillars are:
- Women’s employment
- Circular Economy Center (CEC)
- Sustainable mobility
- Environmental culture and responsible recycling
Women at the center
A cornerstone of Biciclando is its focus on employment for women facing vulnerable conditions. Over 20 women have been trained and hired as bicicladoras—many of them mothers and heads of household. The trainings focus on basic mechanics, safe waste handling, the use of the Biciclando mobile app, cooperative development, and circular economy principles.
Key achievements include:
- 23 women hired during the latest phase
- Majority with high-school education
- 10 mothers, including 5 heads of household
- 20 women rely on Biciclando as their main income
- Highly flexible work schedules supporting care responsibilities
“I feel proud of what I am doing for the city through Biciclando. It brings me peace, and it motivates me to help and work as a team to transform Hermosillo.” — Estefanía Mendoza Guillén, Bicicladora
Scaling circularity
The Circular Economy Center (CEC) is both the operational heart and the symbolic anchor of the initiative. Built with reused maritime containers and equipped with machinery, storage areas, and training spaces, it represents Hermosillo’s commitment to low-carbon infrastructure.
Results include:
- Almost 50–69 tons of recyclable materials collected (PET, cardboard, aluminum, paper, TetraPak)
- 107 households, 245 businesses, 5 schools, and 21 municipal departments affiliated
- Daily collection capacity of ~400 kg
- Sorting and storage operations managed directly by women
Residents request pickups through the Biciclando mobile app, available for iOS and Android, enabling efficient routing and real-time coordination.
Sustainable mobility as a driver of inclusion
With 12 electric-assist bicycles and one electric vehicle, Biciclando demonstrates how clean mobility can generate jobs, reduce emissions, and reshape urban culture.
Achievements:
- 4.2 km of new cycling infrastructure around the CEC
- Installation of confibicis (protected cycling lanes)
- Two community cycling rides with tree planting (30 native trees)
- Increased cycling activity in newly improved corridors
Building environmental awareness and community engagement
Through workshops, cultural activities, and public events, Biciclando has reached over 532 people directly and more than 670,000 users on social media.
Key messaging focused on empowering women and transforming habits:
- “Women who recycle, women who transform.”
- “Recycling isn’t a trend—it’s caring for what we value.”
- “Biciclando is a new way of making the city.”
Lessons for other cities
During the SDG Local Solutions webinar, the question naturally arose: could Biciclando work in other cities, or is Hermosillo a special case? Yes, the model is replicable — and not only in Latin America but in other parts of the world — but only if certain conditions are met.
- First, cities need to understand their own waste and mobility ecosystems: what materials are generated, who buys them, where the main waste generators are located, and how safe it is to move around by bike.
- Second, they need to invest not only in equipment, but in documentation, protocols and organizational culture: operations manuals, safety procedures, monitoring indicators, clear roles and channels of communication. Biciclando learned this the hard way, building many of these tools while already in motion.
- Third, they must treat the women at the center of such programs not as “beneficiaries,” but as partners and agents of change. That means supporting childcare solutions, psychological well-being, continuous training, and real participation in decision-making.
- Finally, sustainability depends on political will and policy alignment. In Hermosillo, the initiative is now transitioning from an externally supported pilot to a program financed and managed by the municipality itself, embedded in local development and climate action strategies.
Conclusions
At the end of the webinar, the moderator, UNICEF’s Thomas George reflected that even large and wealthy cities still struggle with waste management and inclusive urban services. Solutions, he said, rarely emerge from grand global debates alone; they are invented in neighborhoods, by people who know their streets, their climate, and their constraints.
In the city of Hermosillo, those people are women on bikes, weaving between cars with trailers full of cardboard and plastic. They are municipal planners who imagined something different; neighbors who learned to rinse and separate their recyclables; children who drew murals linking bicycles with trees and clean streets.
Biciclando is still advancing, with all the imperfections and frictions of real life. But it has already changed how a city understands recycling, mobility, gender, and climate action — not as separate issues, but as pieces of the same urban story.
Would you like to know more? Click here for more information about Biciclando