The Largest Landfill In Latin America Will Be Closed

Duquesa in the Dominican Republic is the largest open air landfill in Latin America and the Caribbean and has been collecting rotting waste for over 30 years. As far as the eye can see, mountains of rubbish emit an unbearable stench, along with toxic liquids and methane. According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), it is the fifth largest landfill in the world, after Jakarta, Nairobi, Lagos and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of floating garbage and plastic. “It’s the biggest ‘structure’ in the country,” said Catherina Falkner Olmedo, the IDB representative in Santo Domingo. The garbage is piling up every day. Hundreds of trucks are unloading around 4,000 tons of garbage from across the Santo Domingo metropolitan area. From dolls, armchairs and shoes to nail polish and yesterday’s leftovers, everything is thrown together. Plastics, organic waste, cardboard, metal and chemicals end up in this harmful mix.

Esterio works in Duquesa. He is a Haitian migrant who arrived in the Dominican Republic in 2011, escaping a life of insecurity and deprivation at home. He’s a “diver” — the local name for the scavengers that scour the landfill every day to collect cardboard, plastic and metals to sell to recycling companies. Esterio specializes in plastic and paper. Can he make a living from it? “Yes, thank God! It’s way better than being on the street. It’s a job that never lets you down. If there’s garbage, there’s work. And you can’t even look for a job without papers, can you?” He starts work at six every day and finishes around noon. He’s created his own schedule to make $5-$17 a day depending on what he finds. “You can come here whenever you want. There’s no schedule.” He sits in the shade under a tree and takes off his latex gloves. “You can’t do it without gloves because the bottles are broken and you could cut yourself. And there are dead dogs and all that crap.”

The Duquesa closure began in March and will last five years if all goes as planned. The government plans to convert the landfill into a large, well-maintained park with no environmental hazards. The focus is on preventing the release of toxic substances into the subsoil and water and minimizing gas emissions. Efforts have been made to establish accessible roads for garbage disposal and to fill in holes to level the ground rather than create mountains of garbage. A new landfill with better security is being sought. The project, a collaboration between the Inter-American Development Bank and the Dominican government, aims to include a facility for separating and recycling materials. The estimated cost of this project is around US$110 million and will be funded by loans from the IDB (US$44.2 million), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (US$45 million) and the Spanish government (US$20 million US dollars) funded.

“The country’s growth depends on tourism and no tourist wants to see garbage.”
Catherine Falkner Olmedo, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)

“Because of all the uncontrolled garbage fires, people have been calling for Duquesa to be closed for years,” said Mercedes García Marín, project manager at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) in the Dominican Republic. It was not uncommon for the smoke to reach Santo Domingo, just eight miles from the landfill. Adjacent to Duquesa are communities like Esterio, where most people landfill for a living. Surprisingly, Duquesa and the 239 other landfills were not a political issue until April 2020, when a major fire drew attention to this long-standing problem. “It opened the eyes of many people,” said Falkner. “The country’s growth depends on tourism and no tourist wants to see garbage. We met with the government to address the complexity of the issue, which encompasses production, consumption and a culture of recycling, which is absent here.”

Mercedes Garcia Marin agrees. “The country relies heavily on tourism, but less than 20% have proper sanitation systems and only 5-10% of the water is treated. This leads to pollution of the sea and soil. There is a garbage dump in every community and some people even burn their garbage on the street. Waste that cannot be incinerated is simply dumped somewhere.” A stroll through Santo Domingo and the nearby city of San Cristóbal confirms this fact. Indhira de Jesús, Deputy Minister for Environmental Management, is well aware of this reality. “The Dominicans just throw their garbage somewhere. It’s about educating the citizens.”

“Waste has always been seen as a community issue, and in a country where the president is the center of attention, communities often don’t get enough attention.”
Indhira de Jesús, Deputy Minister for Environmental Management, Dominican Republic

The vice minister says it is vital to move forward on closing the Duquesa landfill while people still remember the 2020 fire. She believes this will also encourage the closure and improvement of other landfills, encourage better garbage sorting and recycling practices at home, and encourage greater acceptance of waste disposal fees. “Waste has always been seen as a community issue, and in a president-centric country, communities often don’t get enough attention,” she said. But in a small country with a growing population — 11 million people, according to the World Bank — “it’s getting harder and harder to hide trash where nobody can see it,” she says.

Garbage on a sidewalk in San Cristóbal next to a sign on the wall that reads “No Garbage Disposal.” Miguel Lizana (AECID)

An uncertain future for Haitians

Thousands of other divers like Esterio work at the landfill, sorting garbage that can be recycled. About 80% of them are undocumented Haitians who cannot find formal work. “It used to be possible to live here [in the Dominican Republic], but now there’s more racism and if you don’t have papers you can’t even go out,” Esterio said. He has heard about the plans to close Duchess but does not have the details. He has many questions and few answers. He and all other scavengers who make a living from the Duquesa garbage face an uncertain future. “It’s going to be a problem, you know? What should we do? Steal or just live in misery?

“With the closure, people lose their livelihoods,” admits Falkner. “80% of the collectors are Haitian and most of them are undocumented. The aim is to enable these families to lead a decent life: work, income, health care, education and basic infrastructure.” She suggests introducing training and regulations for recycling work. However, in order to formalize these types of workers, a census is required to identify them and their places of work. Falkner says this initiative could be partially funded by the International Organization for Migration’s Development Fund.

“The new recycling facility will be able to employ some of the current divers,” said Indhira de Jesús, but not all. “There are a lot of people in the recycling industry who can find work if we give them the right education,” she said. However, she declined to comment on specific plans for undocumented Haitians because a process to normalize residence during Duquesa’s shutdown could be contentious.

A worker searches through garbage during the massive fire at the Duquesa landfill site in April 2020. Orlando Barria (EFE)

Migration from the neighboring country always sparks controversy in the Dominican Republic. Human rights organizations accuse the authorities of racist and xenophobic policies towards Haiti. In December 2022, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on the Dominican Republic authorities to intensify their efforts to prevent xenophobia, discrimination and related intolerance based on national origin, race, ethnicity or immigration status. Türk also called for a halt to deportations to Haiti due to the ongoing humanitarian and human rights crisis in that country. “I am concerned that forced returns of Haitians from the Dominican Republic to Haiti continue,” Turk said.

Dominican authorities have denied the allegations. Regarding the future of the Duchess Scavengers, de Jesus would only say: “The social aspect will be a special feature of the project.”

“Closing the landfill is positive for the environment, but we need a plan to help people who have worked there for decades transition into new roles.”
Robinson García, president of a national garbage collection organization in the Dominican Republic

A nationwide garbage collection organization has been trying to reach out to workers in Duquesa to see how they can help with the transition. “So that they don’t have a hard time,” said Robinson Garcia, the organization’s president. “Closing the landfill is positive for the environment, but we need a plan that will ease the transition into new roles for the people who have been working there for decades. It’s the government’s responsibility,” Garcia said. “If not, we’ll just solve the environmental problem and create a new one.” The organization has offered to help authorities train divers and ensure a smooth transition. They want the divers to be seen as partners with the recycling facility and not just employees. So far, however, no one knows what role, if any, they will play.

Garcia says Dominicans and legal residents working in Duquesa are already organizing. But Haitians without papers cannot join the association. “Sooner or later they will be in trouble and we will be there to defend them as best we can. But there will come a time when we just can’t anymore.”