Why is recycling imperative in the country?

Santo Domingo – For the Dominican Republic, it is more urgent than for many other countries to implement the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) project, which involves a total investment of US$110 million and will be implemented in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the International Cooperation Office (AECID) to manage the Integral and Sustainable Solid Waste Management Program in Greater Santo Domingo.

There are three reasons for this: Dominican Republic is the fourth country in Latin America and the Caribbean that does the most damage to the environment with the generation of garbage (each inhabitant produces 650 kilograms of solid waste per year, which means that Dominican Republic is generating more than 7 million tons of solid waste, with 240 open dumps); only 3% of solid waste enters the circular economy (in the region it is on average 15% and in the rest of the world it exceeds 65%), and 50% of the waste generated in the country is organic, which increases the generation of greenhouse gases due to poor management, causing severe health risks.

This situation has its antecedents: partial non-observance of Law No. 3455 of 1952 on the Organization and Administration of the Municipalities (already repealed), harmful practices of most of the municipalities, and the very centralized control exercised by the National Government until the end of the 1990s, in most of the municipalities and Greater Santo Domingo (until 2002 it was the capital of the Republic, Santo Domingo de Guzmán or National District), and the management of the garbage was assumed, totally or partially, by the Executive Power.

If the situation is not changed, with investments to manage garbage and with the creation of people’s awareness of the environment, untreated solid waste could cause floods, diseases, global warming, climate change, and contaminated seas and oceans, among many other consequences that would ruin our country and the planet.

It could contribute to better management that General Law 64-00, on Environment and Natural Resources, was enacted in 2000, and several years later, Law 176-07, on the National District and Municipalities, was enacted. The latter established several competencies related to solid waste management.

The IDB project could be the first step towards implementing a sustainable development agenda based on the proper management of solid waste.

If waste is managed using the magic of recycling, the environmental, social, and economic benefits would be substantial. These include the reduction of greenhouse gases, savings in raw materials, improvement of the countries’ energy matrix, job creation, and increased investment.

In particular, the fact that a percentage of the waste generated in the country is organic offers the opportunity to develop a robust organic fertilizer industry. In recent years, techniques have been developed for waste, such as composting, whose final product is used as organic fertilizer to improve agricultural soils.

It has been demonstrated that mature composts from organic waste are more stable, as they undergo fewer decomposition processes, and are better quality than conventional inorganic fertilizers.

So garbage, which, if mismanaged, threatens life, could become a source of life, providing organic fertilizer for food production that makes our food a medicine.