I hope that
everyone (even my fellow moderators) will keep this civil and results- and solution-oriented.
Speaking as someone who writes/works a heckuva lot on waste issues in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), I have to say that it's a complex, multi-faceted problem with no quick-and-easy solutions, especially in a place like the DR. Not a cop-out, just the hard truth.
To start with in the case of the DR, you have the infrastructure problems. Some municipalities have no real trash collection, many others with totally nuts trash collection contracts that are often more about patronage (i.e., getting
primo a lucrative income stream) than providing citizens with reliable, quality service. And then there is the not-so-insubstantial problem that many people never pay for their trash collection, even when they receive it. When I lived in SD, our neighborhood had collection twice a week (we never knew what time of day it'd be, but at least which two days of the week!), but many of my neighbors never paid their bills for it, even though they could well afford it. So trash collection was always in financial trouble...
There are still no true sanitary landfills in the DR, although the Fernandez Administration is trying to build some in places like Puerto Plata Province -- and facing the kind of "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) neighborhood resistance one sees across LAC and in the US as well. The largest disposal site in the DR -- SD's "Duquesa" -- is a dump that the government hired Brazilian consultants to convert into "manual" or "controlled" landfill that at least meets
some minimal standards.
There are NO -- none, zip, zero, nil -- proper treatment and disposal facilities for hazardous waste in the DR, including radioactive, infectious, toxic. Further, there are no real incinerators or waste-to-energy plants, although plenty of proposals, many of which are frankly dubious and I worry about proper monitoring, supervision and enforcement of emission limits.
Composting in the DR is mostly personal and small-scale. I know of some municipality administrations -- such as San Francisco de Macoris -- that wanted to start municipal-scale projects, but could not get enough support (including possible end-users for the compost) to go through with it.
And last but far from least in the infrastructure dept., there is the lack of recovery and recycling operations in the DR. Why does recycling seem to work in Brazil, but not the DR? In large part because Brazil has the metals, cellulose/board/paper, rubber and plastics industries that can take advantage of collected and recovered materials.
Can you really effectively promote recycling without having recyclers and a local or nearby market for recovered materials? There is some potential for development of this in the DR, I feel, but so far it's difficult to get Dominican businessmen and politicians very excited about it...
There's also how the waste profile in the DR is changing. 30, 20 maybe even 10 years ago if you have done a compositional analysis of the household waste in the DR, you would have found high organic (food, yard waste, etc.) content -- maybe as high as 75% -- that was potentially compostable, but this profile is rapidly changing toward inorganics (metals, plastics, etc.). And more refillable glass food and beverage containers being replaced by plastics, for which there is currently no recycling in the DR. [By the way, polystyrene -- what you tend to call syrofoam, which actually is a trademark name -- IS recyclable, and there are facilities for that in the US. But none in the DR.]
Then there's the education angle. The DR schools are making some timid starts, but they could do so much more. Unfortunately, as someone mentioned above, this is a long-term process. I remember a severe litter problem in the US before the Keep America Beautiful Campaign was launched (I was a kid then, but already interested in environmental issues). Things have improved alot over 35 years, but litter has not disappeared in the US. As dramatic as Skippy's pictures are, I saw something not too far from it in a local Virginia creek I cleaned up with my kids about a year ago. Wish it wasn't so, but it is.
And as someone else pointed out, littering is a problem in most poor countries. I can certainly vouch for that being true in LAC nations. Major municipalities in some countries (even the DF in SD) are fighting it with education,
PR campaigns, etc., with mixed success. But they all recognize that it is a long haul with slow, incremental change.
BTW, I can vouch that littering is done by Dominicans across the board, not just the poor and lower middle class. I have seen it with my own eyes.
I could write (another) book on it the waste problem in LAC in general and DR in particular, and probably should. But hopefully I've made my point about how multi-faceted the DR's waste problem is.
There are things we can do, but we need to work together, be innovative, be conscious that it will take time and dedication, and above all, find ways to get Dominicans involved and helping to lead the change. It can't be done entirely or even mostly by expats -- that will probably doom it to failure.
Sobered by harsh realities but still willing to take on the waste challenge in the DR,
Keith R
Environment Forum Moderator
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