Closing one of Latin America’s Biggest Dumpsites

Jan 23, 2017 | Close dumpsites

One of the largest dumpsites in Latin America, located in Brazil???s national capital region of Brasilia, serves between 4-5 and 5 million people. The Estrutural dumpsite, as it is known, was one of the dumpsites mentioned in ISWA’s report as being one of the 50 biggest in the world, and one of the largest in the region.

The city has never had any recycling or waste treatment services of any kind since the city’s inception almost 60 years ago.

However, things are about to change. Last week the city opened its first sanitary landfill and began the process of closing the Estrutural site. ISWA President Antonis Mavropoulos (pictured left handing a copy of our latest report to the Secretary of Environment in Sao Paulo, Ricardo Salles) was invited to Brazil by our National Member, ABRELPE to oversee the closure of this facility. ISWA and ABRELPE will continue to monitor the process over the next few years and ensure that the city remains committed to treating waste in a more sustainable and sound manner.

This is a remarkable step forward as ISWA campaigns to #closedumpsites, with this being one of the key sites highlighted in ISWA’s recent Roadmap.

The dumpsite has already partially closed and the majority of the waste is now going to a sanitary landfill whilst the city are building a number of sorting and recycling plants. Until those plants are finished, the dumpsite remains partially open.

As ISWA monitors the progress of this dumpsite closure, we will bring you updates on the process and we hope to finally provide you with a case study of how to successfully close a dumpsite.

We will be bringing you more news on this soon. Let’s hope this is the first of many dumpsite closures we report on!

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