What a dump!

Diego Cevallos, in Tierramérica (Uruguay) on a growing Mexico City problem that just won’t go away:

MEXICO CITY, Sep 15 (Tierramérica).- If the municipal government of Mexico City were to keep its promises, laid out in laws and plans from 2003 and 2004, the treatment of the 12,300 tons of garbage produced daily by the metropolis would be more environmentally friendly. But instead there is a threat of collapse and a huge contaminated area.

The Bordo Poniente dump emits two million tons of carbon-based gases into the atmosphere each year, which represents 15 percent of the greenhouse effect gases produced by this city of nine million people, second only to automobiles, the main source of climate changing gases. Closing down the dump would be the equivalent of taking some 500,000 cars off the roads. After at least four postponements in five years, the Bordo Poniente, opened in 1985 in the east of the capital, will be shut down in January. But for now there is no alternative dump site, although the authorities are considering various possibilities.

The Federal District picks up garbage twice a day (and it’s quite an experience, the garbage men preceded by a bell man coming down the street… “bring out your trash!”), and with 9 to 12 million resident it does pile up.