Partly for this reason, the handful of countries that have already introduced recycling programmes for electrical goods, such as the Netherlands and Sweden, have all chosen to make producers pay.

ECONOMIST: Recycling

Dr Cazap says the main reason for this is that a number of Latin American countries are becoming more economically developed, which in turn is bringing rapid urbanisation and ageing populations.

BBC: Hugo Chavez's US 'cancer plot' put to the numbers test

For this reason one can ask whether even a currency union (of independent countries, whether in Europe or the Americas) can ever be perfectly credible.

ECONOMIST: No more peso?