Closure of open air dumps
Two weeks ago I wrote about the problem of solid waste disposal in El Salvador and protests involving the creation of a new sanitary landfill for Santa Ana.
This week all of the open air dumps must be closed, and environmental inspectors went out across the country to ensure that municipalities were complying with the law. Protests continued in Santa Ana over the new landfill which may not comply with environmental regulations. More than 100 municipalities have signed contracts to send their solid waste to the sanitary landfill at Nejapa .
The new law also means the end of an era for the thousands of persons who make their livelihoods in these open air dumps, searching for items of value amidst the discarded rubbish of Salvadoran society. According to today's edition of the digital magazine El Faro, in the six months since the dump closure law was passed, no representative of any institution ever came and told those people depending on working in the dumps that this week the garbage trucks would stop coming.
El Faro published a photo gallery of stark black and white photographs showing the lives of those who scavenge in the "kingdom of the vulture". What will they do now?
This week all of the open air dumps must be closed, and environmental inspectors went out across the country to ensure that municipalities were complying with the law. Protests continued in Santa Ana over the new landfill which may not comply with environmental regulations. More than 100 municipalities have signed contracts to send their solid waste to the sanitary landfill at Nejapa .
The new law also means the end of an era for the thousands of persons who make their livelihoods in these open air dumps, searching for items of value amidst the discarded rubbish of Salvadoran society. According to today's edition of the digital magazine El Faro, in the six months since the dump closure law was passed, no representative of any institution ever came and told those people depending on working in the dumps that this week the garbage trucks would stop coming.
El Faro published a photo gallery of stark black and white photographs showing the lives of those who scavenge in the "kingdom of the vulture". What will they do now?
Comments
It's almost as if the media has two options: El Salvador is bad and El Salvador is bad: A picture of a child scraping for food in El Salvador, or an elderly who just lost its only source of survival, in El Salvador. It can never win...
Whereas quite of course I support the closure of open-air dumps, you seem to have stumbled upon a truth many so-called "environmentalist" radicals choose to ignore: that blind rejection of hydropower, mining, new and existing factories, electrical power, and road construction leave Salvadoreans with a stark reality:
If there is no power, no jobs, and no infrastructure, what will Salvadoreans do now?
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Great post. Thanks.
Why, of course. Look at all of the rich countries: in most of these, most enterprises are private. How do you think they got rich in the first place?
right, dude
because the Swiss, the Italian, the Hong Kong, and the Korean empires were once so powerful!
The Italian's had various territories scattered across Africa during the same time period.
Korean Empires..Hm don't know about that one, as they really aren't rich nor are they privatization leaders...
Ahhh the Swiss, gotta love them. Neutrality spared them destruction that various other european countries had to deal with and rebuild. But they aren't the goldenboys of privatization either..
Countries get rich through savings, hard work, the sanctity of private contracts, decent courts, and private property.
Empire-building leaves countries poor and overextended. Just ask Napoleon, Tojo, or Gorbachev.