Landfills

[Hlywud]

You know if the government was stable and paid their bills, the mega environmental companies like Browning Ferris would be there in an instant. But no money, no waste disposal systems.

[dms3611]

There is a big open dump about 1 mile "east" of the Riu hotel.

You can often smell it "burning" in the morning in the Maimon area. It is a tad bit harder to see now that they put that
"excellent" fencing system up at the front of the road (ha).

If a sustainable fill system (properly done) was going to work anywhere in the DomRep, this would be the type of area where it should work correctly. There are resorts, hotels, nice homes in the area that you would believe have an incentive to keep their area beautiful and safe from the problems associated with dumps.

BUT THEY DON'T (majority)! They really don't get involved (majority). Everyone wants to pay and "do" (including the resorts) the absolute bare minimum to get rid of the trash.

Now please tell me what do you believe is the trash impact on areas around resorts? You absolutely KNOW that the resorts wrack up an unbelievable amout of daily trash.

Keith, if there are funds available for this type of project (and we wanted to create a viable "ongoing concern") then it seems to me that the "target group" for this improved service would be those that: 1). could be leading as an example for sustained
"environment friendly" landfill use (and could promote themselves as such?); 2). should have the money to pay for the use; and 3). should have an incentive to use it (especially anyone that promotes "eco-tourism" packages).

From a commercial standpoint, and in my opinion, this points to the "tourism sector" with contracts tied to the resorts. It would seem if you are going to convince anyone to "do it right" that you have a decent shot with these folks. You may then be able to add a % of the local trash/garbage (say within x mile area) as the bonus. Starts to clean up slowly but surely...has continuity...done right....but actually does something "right".

From a business standpoint, contracts made with the hotel systems (independent) would seemingly be the ONLY WAY to sustain this activity profitably.

[Keith R]

Dave,
Excellent post with very good points.

The World Bank actually tried this tact with the North Coast tourist destinations in the mid- to late 1990's. Held a series of consultations with Asonahores, local businesses and local government officials. I know a bit about it because I knew the chief environmental engineer for the Bank involved. As I recall, the local biz people & Asonahores were very supportive. They in fact wanted a collection, treatment & disposal system (plus a wastewater treatment system) run by a private entity with assurances of proper sanitary & quality control, something they could brag about to the Europeans who at that time were some of the biggest source of tourism to PP & Sosua. What they didn't want was to keep it in the hands of the local municipality, with hotels & resturants essentially pouring money into a local waste management system that would not assure proper controls, would have money siphoned off from it and not be maintained properly, eventually failing.

According to my engineer friend (and a local business person familiar with the talks), the local pols refused to play ball. And as the laws & ordinances were at that time (don't know if this is still the case), such a venture could not be started without the local governments granting the right to run private systems. Also, they didn't want to provide an exucse for the local tourism industry to diminish what they paid in taxes.

Maybe this idea can be revived? I know for a fact that the Bank people, and some of the tech people at IDB who were monitoring this case, felt that it was a real shame it did not happen. They had hopes of showing other places in Latin America & the Caribbean how this could be done right....