The objective of this article is to review the environmental problems in Mexican state of San Luis Potosí (mining region) and the state of compliance with the right to a healthy environment. Our study helps to demonstrate complexity of the environmental impact in a broader context, if it is repeated in other mining regions of the non-developing world. The findings include heavy metals as lead and arsenic, in soil, with neurotoxic and carcinogenic properties. Impact on the biota as a whole, decrease of the biological activity and enzymatic inhibition. Heavy metals, including arsenic, mercury, cadmium and lead, as a product of the metallurgical and foundry industry were detected in children of the city of San Luis Potosí. Water contaminated with fluorine and arsenic, product of the extensive drilling of water wells and the transfer of contaminants from the mining and metallurgical industry. Air contaminated with heavy metals product of mining and metallurgy and hydrocarbons in urban and rural areas. Plastics as a global problem, but with the absence of local diagnosis, despite having one of the main pollution factors: industrial development. Hydrocarbons as pollution with very little diagnosis, beyond environmental emergencies. There is no evidence that the right to a healthy environment is fulfilled in the State of San Luis Potosí.

The different economic models implemented by the states in the last decades range from a simple tendency for accumulation and growth in terms of the Gross Domestic Product to the development of people’s well-being under the premises of sustainability. Those that invest in individual development through education in strategic areas, facilitate the generation of intrinsic value, without relying on the exploitation of their natural resources or on the physical labor force of their citizens, thus achieving the effective sustainable development. In this paper, we analyzed the importance of introducing legal and political changes, focused on encouraging education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), mainly in those economies that are oriented on the structural or developmental paradigm, whose most current form of expression is found in the theory of the New Structural Economy, to favor endogenous growth in accordance with the sustainable development paradigm, using LATAM as an example.

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The negative effects of tourism have led to urban, environmental, and social deterioration in various Mexican tourist destinations. Biotechnology can provide some technical alternatives for hydrocarbon and plastic pollution with promising results of bioremediation. However, the scientific approach apparently is insufficient due to the magnitude of environmental concerns regarding these materials. In this work, remediation and prevention are studied. Therefore, Official Mexican Standards that directly address environmental problems, particularly those generated by hydrocarbons and microplastics, are necessary.

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