Raúl Gutiérrez
SAN SALVADOR, Sep 11 2007 (IPS) – After several years delay, authorities in El Salvador are about to permanently close down the unofficial open-air rubbish dumps that have polluted the country for decades.
But experts and activists are not satisfied with the decision, saying it deals only with the final disposal of waste, while neglecting environmental education and awareness-raising on the recycling and classifying of garbage.
The Environment Ministry set a Sept. 10 deadline for all rubbish dumps run by local governments, where no waste treatment whatsoever is carried out, to cease operating. The solid wastes are to be transferred to authorised sanitary landfill sites.
The decision has revived a longstanding controversy between the central government, Congress and city governments about who is responsible for waste treatment in this country, where it is a common experience to see drivers and passengers throw rubbish out of vehicles, or to come across waste piled on streets and highways.
The head of the Appropriate Technology Centre (CESTA), Ricardo Navarro, said that the official resolution and the way it has been portrayed in the press have distorted the issue, by creating black-and-white images of the present dumps and the sanitary landfill sites.
Many of the official landfill sites are nearly as bad as the open air tips, and will cause just as much pollution because they were improperly built, Navarro, a town councillor in San Salvador, told IPS.
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Some have been built in areas where there are springs of water, or in places where aquifers are recharged by rainwater filtering through soil and rock, he said.
El Salvador s Environment Law was passed by the single chamber parliament in May 1998, but its entry into force was postponed six times, for periods of between six months and two years, so that the open air dumps could continue to operate. The reason given was that the municipal governments lacked resources and alternative sites for waste disposal.
The final six-month postponement was granted in March 2007.
Environment Minister Carlos Guerrero said that as of Monday, El Salvador would be a cleaner and healthier country.
I am pleased with the cooperation we have received from all the mayors. I think they have understood that closing the dumps sends the message that we are working for our people, for the environment and for the people s health, Guerrero told IPS in a telephone interview while he supervised the closure of the waste dump in Ilobasco, 55 kilometres from San Salvador.
Mayors in areas that continue to tip rubbish in unauthorised dumps will be fined between 150 and 5,000 minimum salaries, depending on the size and environmental impact of the dump, he said.
The minimum salary is about 160 dollars a month. Local governments must also present an environmental assessment, which is to include a contract with one of the 11 authorised sanitary landfill sites and the creation of local environmental units, Guerrero said.
According to official figures, in December 2006 the country was producing a total of some 2,600 tons of solid waste a day.
The head of the solid waste unit at the San Salvador Metropolitan Area Planning Office (OPAMSS), José Pérez, criticised the ministerial resolution because it is focused on the ultimate disposal of waste, neglects the intermediate stages, and casts all the responsibility on local governments.
Pérez also complained that the Ministry was not undertaking environmental awareness-raising campaigns, one of its main duties under the law.
The OPAMSS official stressed that to begin with, plans for reducing, classifying and recycling waste should be designed, in order to substantially decrease the quantity of waste bound for the sanitary landfill sites.
According to OPAMSS, in the 14 municipalities that make up Greater San Salvador, 1,300 tons of rubbish are collected out of the 1,500 tons produced daily, which amounts to about 60 percent of the total nationwide.
The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman (PDDH) entered the fray in early September, recommending precautionary measures against building a sanitary landfill site in Cutumay Camones, in the western department (province) of Santa Ana.
Local people have pointed out that the authorised site is only 700 metres from a spring used by the 8,000 residents for drinking water.
The PDDH found that the site was indeed located on an aquifer, and recommended that another site be selected.
Ombudsman Oscar Luna recommended that the Ministry suspend the sanitary landfill project immediately, and asked Santa Ana Mayor Orlando Mena to take steps to protect the environment.
PPDH resolutions are not binding, and have moral force only.
The Ministry authorised the landfill site in Cutumay Camones, and fined Mayor Mena.
The leftwing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the leading opposition party, formally accused Minister Guerrero of non-fulfilment of the Environment Law before the Government Ethics Tribunal.
FMLN lawmaker Lourdes Palacios, who sits on the Commission on Health, Environment and Natural Resources, told IPS that the minister had failed to design and implement an integrated solid waste management programme, and not just a plan for disposal, as the law requires.
CESTA s Navarro also pointed out that community participation has been neglected. The main thing is to promote an educational campaign on how to make fertiliser out of organic waste, and how to recycle what can be reused, in the context of a longterm, integrated solution involving the community, he said.
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