Solid Waste Management in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

July 11, 2016 — Solid Waste Management in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Brent Perdue

Latin America and the Caribbean combined are one of the most urbanized regions of the world, after North America, with 80 percent of residents living in urban areas (World Urbanization Prospects, 2014). Urbanization agglomerates people, production, and consumption thereby creating large amounts of waste and resultant pressure on solid waste management services, in particular when solid waste infrastructure is inadequate or inequitably distributed.

The Dominican Republic is a middle-income country, has the largest economy in the Caribbean, aand is one of the fastest growing economies in the Americas (World Bank, 2016). Santo Domingo is the largest city in the Caribbean with a population of approximately 3.9 million people producing approximately 3,500 tons of waste every day, which represents half of the country’s total waste production (Cattafesta, 2013). The Greater Santo Domingo region consists of five municipalities that provide varying types and levels of governmental services.

Unplanned informal settlements across the Santo Domingo region developed in floodplains along the Isabela River and Ozama River, as well as along connected creeks. Infrastructure for surface runoff management and solid waste services is lacking and deficient in informal settlements. Street and staircase infrastructure is also deficient, restricting the ability of solid waste collection vehicles to access the communities. The precarious housing of informal settlements is at greater risk for flooding as uncollected trash and debris clog waterways. In addition, poverty and low educational attainment levels are widespread in informal settlements. The World Bank estimates that approximately 30 percent of the Dominican Republic population lives in poverty (World Bank, 2016).

Solid waste management is inadequate across the Dominican Republic (JICA, 2006). Indeed, in 2015 the Environment and Natural Resources Minister warned that the country could “be in a state of permanent vulnerability due to deficiency waste collection and disposal” (Santana, 2015). The nation has no sanitary landfills—landfills that are engineered with methane, leachate, and vector controls (JICA, 2006). At Duquesa, the largest landfill in the country, informal waste pickers (known as “buzos”) search dumped waste for recyclable materials, methane off gases into the atmosphere, and contaminated leachate enters water systems (JICA, 2006). Across the country, improvised dump sites are common, as well as dumping into creeks and rivers (Cattafesta, 2013). Waste accumulations in the streets, empty lots, and waterbodies create environmental and public health risks, such as degraded water quality and the sources for the spread of infectious diseases.

In the Santo Domingo region, solid waste collection from households, businesses, and industry is inadequate and uneven (Cattafesta, 2013; JICA, 2006). In addition, there are varying levels of access to service between and within municipalities (Cattafesta, 2013; JICA, 2006). All of the Santo Domingo municipalities contract with private solid waste service providers (Silfa, 2016). However, the only National District municipality contracts with community organizations to provide solid waste services in informal settlements (Silfa, 2016). Within municipalities, formal neighborhoods generally receive solid waste service, albeit relatively inadequate due to frequency of pickup and lack of waste containers (JICA, 2006). In informal settlements outside of the National District, solid waste collection is not provided by the corresponding municipalities (Silfa, 2016). These areas are more vulnerable to environmental and public health risks due to the lack of solid waste collection.

House over trash-filled creek in Santo Domingo. Photo by Brent Perdue

Traditional solid waste management strategies are not very effective, nor economical, in the spatial and built environment of informal settlements. Land use patterns are not planned and the street network infrastructure is not conducive to large rear-end loader waste compactor vehicles driving through informal settlements for collection. Some municipalities have placed dumpsters along the edges of informal settlements. But, deficient street and stairs infrastructure inhibits carrying waste up and out of the communities.

In order to provide solid waste services in informal settlements, the National District municipality began to contract with community foundations, such as the Zurza Environmental Sanitation Foundation or FUNDSAZURZA (Silfa, 2016). Five solid waste management foundations exist in five informal settlements along the Isabela River in Santo Domingo. As not-for-profit organizations, the community foundations are able to provide tailored solid waste services in the spatial and built environment of informal settlements with the support of the municipality. The foundations use hand-pushed carts to navigate the narrow and winding alleys for solid waste collection. The pushcarts deposit the solid waste in designated areas located on more developed streets to be loaded into compactor trucks. Then, the compactor truck transports the waste to a waste transfer station to be loaded into 40-yard tractor trailers for final disposal at the Duquesa landfill. The foundations also deploy street sweeping teams to collect litter and remaining solid waste. The five foundations jointly operate a recycling center where plastic, plastic bags, paper, and cardboard materials are diverted for baling and sale. Recycling is collected by environmental awareness outreach teams who go house to house, primarily collecting single-use plastic. The street sweeping, pushcart, and compactor truck personnel also separate recyclables from commingled solid waste. With the municipal contract revenue, the community foundations also provide social services, such as environmental awareness campaigns, gender equality advocacy, youth development, senior care, and fumigation.

FUNDSAZURZA provides solid waste services to over 14,000 people and employs 93 people (Silfa, 2016). FUNDSAZURZA collects approximately 3,500 tons of solid waste each month (Silfa, 2016). This summer, I will be accompanying FUNDSAZURZA in its various aspects of solid waste management— street sweeping, pushcart collection, truck collection, recycling collection, recycling processing, and environmental awareness efforts. I plan to observe and document the operations in order to provide a report to FUNDSAZURZA on their current operations with potential recommendations. I worked in solid waste management for seven years and hope to leverage that experience to FUNDSAZURZA’s advantage. In the next blog posts to follow, I will share more about FUNDSAZURZA’s history and my experiences as I accompany FUNDSAZURZA in its various solid waste management processes.

Article Source