Garbage disaster looms at giant Mexico City dump
By Mica Rosenberg NEZAHUALCOYOTL, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico City is facing a crisis over where to put its trash — enough to fill four sports stadiums a year — with its sprawling dump already crammed to bursting and under a closure order. One of the world’s biggest landfills, the Nezahualcoyotl dump site is a fifth the size of Manhattan and sits inside the urban sprawl of the fast-growing Mexican capital. Mexico City is built on a dried-out lake bed first settled by the ancient Aztecs and grew at such a frenetic pace in the 1980s and 1990s that it now envelopes outlying villages, the dump and the international airport. Now, mountains of refuse piled several stories high are pressing against a major drainage canal that runs along the dump’s edge. That risks a rupture that could flood residential areas and the airport with stinking effluent and grime, says the federal government which ordered the dump closed in January. But city officials are stalling in court, arguing that the danger is exaggerated and asking for more time to implement ambitious recycling and green energy projects. "If the canal breaks it would be a disaster, you would have thousands of people inundated with sewage," said Mauricio Limon, an official at the Environment Ministry, which has been trying to close down the landfill for years. "More time in operation means more polluting methane … tainted aquifers, more contamination of the surrounding areas, damaged wildlife and bad odors," Limon said.
Whats furthering the finger being pointed at the mañana syndrome, is the fact that the german technology company is not requesting Mexico City to invest not one dime (or peso) for the technology, they are offering a tipping fee at 50% less per ton that what it cost Mexico City to truck the 12,600 tons per day that reach Bordo Poniente, and to top it off, the technology will sell Mexico City enough electricity generated form their own trash to light up its entire under ground metro system at considerable savings from the current electricity fees its state owned government charges them.
So far, it looks as if Mexico City government officials have yet to locate a pen and execute a lay down of deal for this misery to end…and when will they sign?…..
You guessed it…..mañana!.
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