>Q Research General #26754: Dig, Meme, Pray - Happy 7th Edition
TYB
>7 year anniversary today
>o7 frens
>proud to serve on this ship with each of (you)
Currently, waste in Puerto Rico goes to one of 29 landfills on the island –most of which are over capacity and noncompliant under RCRA Subtitle D, or otherwise referred to as “open dumps.” The U.S. EPA has legal agreements to close 12 of them.Nov 18, 2019
Trouble in paradise: Recycling a tough proposition for US …
>most of which are over capacity and noncompliant
basically democrats turned Puerto Rico into a shithole territory and when Tony points it out in a joke, they cry racism
Puerto Rico Landfill Problems: All You Need to Know
Published May 09, 2022
According to a study commissioned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and conducted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),Puerto Rico could run out of landfill space in 2-4 years.This long-identified capacity issue has been exacerbated by tonnes of debris left behind by two back-to-back hurricanes that devastated the region in 2017.
However, at least two big Puerto Rican waste companies believe that insufficient capacity is not the underlying issue. The largest sites claim that they can probably take in the trash for more than 30 years. They claim that the problems are primarily related to compliance and poor management,which seem to be the result of limited resources. Continue reading to learn more about the landfill issues in Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico Landfill Situation
Randy Jensen, president, and CEO of EC Waste says,“There is an absolute landfill crisis in Puerto Rico,but it’s not air space. It is that we still allow 22 unlined dumps to accept waste. While we do have regulations, enforcement on the island is not consistent. I believe more consistent enforcement needs to occur across all waste receiving sites.”
Municipalities own the majority of landfills. And, for the most part, they are allowed to operate as they please, according to Carlos Contreras, CEO, and president of Consolidated Waste Services, which manages five landfills serving 19 jurisdictions. Some of the landfills he manages are lined, but not all.
Operators of pre-Subtitle D sites are permitted by law to add lined cells if the remaining unlined portion of the site is closed. Because it has already been determined that this space complies with a permitted use, expansion must take place within the landfill's original footprint. According to Ivelisse Estrada, president of Ecosystems, Inc., many Puerto Rican operators who are adding lined cells are not closing the unlined portions, and sometimes those cells remain active.
Another issue appears to be the slow pace of administrative progress. Contreras claims he has two landfills that need to be expanded for Subtitle D lined portions and has been waiting for permit approval for four years.
The time lag and issues that allow non-compliant landfills to operate are mainly due to the lack of funding and technical expertise.
According to some of the region's operators, another issue is the uneven distribution of facilities, which has resulted in an uneven playing field. Most landfills in the northeastern part of the island have reached capacity and closed, and this is where the majority of the waste is produced. There are a lot of sites in the southwest, but there isn't a lot of waste. Competition is fierce in the southwest, with operators lowering their tip fees so low that they are forced to invest in resources to meet Subtitle D regulations.
Meanwhile, according to the CEO of EC waste, Puerto Rico has nearly 100 million cubic yards of compliant air space and nearly 40 million cubic yards available for expansion (equating to more than 140 million tonnes total).
The Solution to Puerto Rico Landfill Problem
The EPA's Caribbean Environmental Protection Division is assisting with recovery funding and is collaborating with local and federal partners to identify recycling mechanisms for demolition materials.
The US EPA is assisting the Puerto Rican government as well in reviewing and permitting new compliant landfill cells. The EPA had also issued consent orders to some non-compliant landfills, for example, informing them that they must install interim covers and/or EPA-approved groundwater monitoring systems by specific dates or face penalties.
Smaller landfills that are not in compliance will be forced to close in five to seven years due to overflooding of waste. Contreras believes that there will be more fair competition as a result. Nonetheless, some non-compliant large sites may continue to accept waste in the future.
EPA Files Complaint against Puerto Rico Municipality over Landfill
>basically democrats turned Puerto Rico into a shithole territory and when Tony points it out in a joke, they cry racism
The United States Department of Justice lodged a complaint in the District of Puerto Rico on February 25, 2021, on behalf of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding that the municipality of Toa Alta stop disposing of solid waste at its landfill and take action to address public health and environmental threats posed by hazardous conditions at the landfill, which is being operated in violation of federal and commonwealth solid waste laws.
The complaint also requests that the court order the municipality of Toa Alta to pay civil penalties for violating an EPA order issued in 2017 that addressed issues at the landfill.
According to the complaint, the landfill poses three major threats:
Toa Alta's municipality is taking insufficient measures to prevent large amounts of leachate – water mixed with harmful pollutants that seep from the landfill – from escaping into nearby neighborhoods, surface waters, and the underlying groundwater aquifer.
The slopes of the landfill in certain areas are unstable and may collapse, potentially endangering people that work at the landfill and residents whose homes are near the landfill's foot.
The Municipality has not consistently placed required soil on top of waste disposed of at the landfill at the end of each day's disposal activities. The use of this soil cover, also known as daily cover, prevents insects, vermin, birds, and trespassers from accessing landfill waste and aids in the prevention of disease spread, such as the dengue and Zika viruses.
Concerning the problems at this landfill, the EPA is in contact with the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources. The EPA is collaborating with the department to improve solid waste management in Puerto Rico.
EcoRich Elite II commercial composting systems are an excellent choice for reducing waste volume and environmental impact. Join the eco-friendly community today by purchasing EcoRich commercial composters!
https://www.ecorichenv.com/article/puerto-rico-landfill-problems
>otherwise referred to as “open dumps.” The U.S. EPA has legal agreements to close 12 of them.Nov 18, 2019
>Puerto Rico Landfill Problems: All You Need to Know
>What a floating island of shithole
kek
>https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-09/gfx-solid-waste-management-in-puerto-rico.pdf
Los vertederos y el manejo de la basura en Puerto Rico
Landfills and garbage management in Puerto Rico
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The establishment and use of landfills is a relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain way to manage a municipality's solid waste. However, the use of landfills could be very costly to health and the environment if they are not properly managed.
There are several ways to dispose of solid waste (e.g. composting of organic material or incineration) and there are also different types of landfills.1. Landfills that comply with environmental regulations tend to cover the soil with plastic sheeting to prevent the percolation of leachate that can carry contaminants that could harm water supplies in aquifers.1,2which are commonly known as linners. This type of landfill is known as a sanitary landfill and is constructed by compacting layers of waste and then capping them with soil before adding the next layer.1. Landfills that do not comply with environmental regulations do not cover the ground with plastic sheeting and do not evaluate the type of waste they receive to divert hazardous waste. These types of landfills are known as open dumps.1,3,4.
Current status of landfills
In Puerto Rico, landfills are mainly used to dispose of solid waste by burying it underground.5. As of 2008, there were 32 landfills in Puerto Rico, most of which did not comply with the regulations established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).5,6 (EPA).There are currently 29 landfills remaining, of which 18 are not in compliance with federal regulations and there is a closure order for 11 of them.3,7,8. Closing landfills complicates solid waste management since Puerto Rico produces between 8,000 to 9,900 tons of solid waste daily.4,6. The passage of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 increased the generation of garbage reaching landfills.3,9 in turn causing a reduction in the useful life of the landfill sites.3.
Future of waste management
The closure of landfills, the increase in garbage generation and the poor recycling system only aggravates the problem of solid waste management in Puerto Rico. Among the ideas proposed to address the problem is the expansion of existing landfills, but permits have not yet been approved and there are no personnel assigned to the project.3. Landfills have been and continue to be the only way in which the island's garbage problem has been "capped". Strategies such as increasing recycling, composting and waste diversion projects have been considered, but none, so far, have been done on a scale that will have the necessary impact on the generation of solid waste in Puerto Rico.10,11.
References
Vaverková, M. D. Landfill impacts on the environment- review. Geosciences 9, 1-16 (2019).
Miranda, M. L. & Hale, B. Re-Covering All the Bases : A Comparison of Landfills and Resource Recovery Facilities in Puerto Rico. St. Nicholas School of the Environment (1999).
Alvarado-LeĂłn, G. Landfills will lose their capacity in four years. El Nuevo DĂa (2019).
Miranda, M. L. & Hale, B. Re-Covering All the Bases : A Comparison of Landfills and Resource Recovery Facilities in Puerto Rico by. Duke Univ. Nicolas Sch. Environ. (1999).
Rivera Quintana, F. E. To Extend Useful Life of Toa Baja Municipal Solid Waste Landfill (2018).
Balaguer-dátiz, G. & Krishnan, N. Life cycle comparison of two options for MSW management in Puerto Rico: Thermal treatment vs. modern landfilling. in North American Waste-to-Energy Conference 141-146 (2008).
NotiCel. Some landfills will be expanded and others will be closed. NotiCel (2021).
Notiséis360. More than half of the island's landfills will be closed by 2022. Notiséis360 (2019).
Kennedy, M. & Migaki, L. After Maria, Puerto Rico Struggles Under The Weight Of Its Own Garbage : The Two-Way. NPR News (2017).
Bosman, J. A., Milano, P. J. & Adams, S. An Evaluation of the Recycling Practices on the Island of Puerto Rico (2007).
Loon Chan Matthew Eckelman Sarah Percy Xizhou Zhou, K. A Characterization of the Recycling Sector in Puerto Rico.
Author : Rita Cáceres Charneco, Ph.D.
B.S. and Ph.D. in Biologyfrom the University of Puerto Rico-RioPiedras.
https://raicespr.com/en/los-vertederos-y-el-manejo-de-la-basura-en-pr/
>Los vertederos y el manejo de la basura en Puerto Rico
After Maria, Puerto Rico Struggles Under The Weight Of Its Own Garbage
December 14, 20176:29 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Outside Puerto Rico's capital,a three-story-high mountain of debris and waste sits smack in the middle of what was a suburban soccer fieldbefore Hurricane Maria devastated the island.
Blue bleachers peek out from the edge of the trash pile, as a line of trucks rolls in to dump even more tree branches and moldy furniture. Workmen wearing yellow hard hats operate diggers to add the new waste to the growing pile in the center of the field.
Puerto Rico is struggling under the weight of its own garbage.Even before Maria hit in September, the Environmental Protection Agency says, most of the island's landfills were filled beyond capacity and that nearly half were under orders to close.
Puerto Rico's Solid Waste Authority estimates that the powerful hurricane created 6.2 million cubic yards of waste and debris. That's enough trash to fill about 43 football stadiums with piles of waste eight stories high, according to a measure used by FEMA.
And it has to go somewhere.
Workmen at the soccer field say the site became a makeshift dump because the landfill for the Toa Baja municipality, near San Juan, is so flooded with trash that wait times to dump debris can be hours. When the soccer site becomes too full, the workers say waste is then moved to the landfill in trucks.
In Maria's wake, local governments are supposed to separate tree branches and other "green waste" for composting so that it doesn't clog up landfills, says Antonio Rios, head of the Solid Waste Authority, the agency that sets the U.S. territory's waste policy.
That composting process isn't happening everywhere, Rios acknowledges. Green debris is still winding up in overflowing landfills across the island, though he says authorities are trying to divert additional material to landfills that have more room. Rios points out that the hurricane also has created other types of waste, things like broken kitchen appliances and food that went rotten because of a lack of electricity.
The landfill in Toa Baja is managed by the private firm Conwaste and takes in trash from at least four municipalities.It has been deeply troubled for years.
The site is supervised by 25-year-old Lionel Ruiz. Last month, he says, it accepted 36,000 tons of waste — that's 70 percent more than the month before the hurricane. Ruiz points to trash-filled trucks waiting in a line that stretches down a dirt road and off into the distance.
"It's more busy than usual," Ruiz says. "You see the line? We never have that line in normal operation."
In 2008, the EPA ordered the Toa Baja landfill to close by 2014 because it posed an "imminent and substantial endangerment to health and the environment." The agency said environmental inspectors found evidence that the landfill did not have a system to control liquid seeping through the garbage pile and into the ground. The agency found that this substance, called leachate, could potentially contaminate a nearby aquifer and wetlands.
In 2012, the EPA permitted the landfill to delay the closure for an unspecified amount of time. It was also allowed to create a smaller area incorporating more environmental precautions — such as a lining to prevent seepage — and begin accepting waste there.
The problems are much the same across the lush tropical island of Puerto Rico. The EPA got directly involved in the island's landfills in 2002, and has since ordered at least 12 of the approximately 29 landfills to close, which can be a years-long process.
It's not immediately clear how many sites — most of which are already at capacity — have actually shut down.
Rios of the Solid Waste Authority estimates that at current recycling rates, all of the island's landfills will be full in 20 to 25 years.
>Even before Maria hit in September, the Environmental Protection Agency says, most of the island's landfills were filled beyond capacity and that nearly half were under orders to close.
Even the newly added space in Toa Baja's landfill is rapidly filling up, Ruiz says. Before the hurricane hit, he said he thought it would take five years for that area to fill up; Maria has sped up the timeline.
And he's grappling with immediate problems.Birds and insects circle around what is currently a hot, rancid, open dump.
"This is the active area of the landfill, you will see a lot of uncovered material," Ruiz says. Workers would normally cover the expansive mess with earth every day to comply with federal regulations, but he says they haven't been able to do so for a week because the private trucks they use are now being used by FEMA.
The uncovered mounds of rotting garbage is upsetting to people down the hill in the neighborhood of Candelaria, people like 83-year-old Angelo Fernandez."The smell, the stink!" he says, totally exasperated. "Every time they leave it open, the smell is awful."
In his 41 years living here, he's seen mountains of trash rise from the ground, parts of which are now covered with dirt and vegetation. But the waste lies just inches under the surface.
"It is getting bigger, it is getting bigger and bigger— that was never this height — never," Fernandez says. "All that mountain you see there is garbage!"
He says people living in Candelaria suffer from asthma and other breathing problems because of the landfill. They cough a lot.
Actually closing a landfill is expensive, costing approximately $200,000 per acre, according to Rios. Puerto Rico is struggling with more than $120 billion in debt and pension obligations, and has filed for a bankruptcy-like procedure — and that was before the hurricane.
The EPA has acknowledged that the budget crisis is making it more difficult for local governments on the island to handle the garbage problem. The municipalities "have always had limited funds to implement the environmental and engineering controls required to improve, and ultimately close, the landfills," the agency says. And Puerto Rico's Environmental Quality Board hasn't required municipalities to set money aside in case their landfills needed to close.
Another issue, Rios says, is that some of the landfills now under closure orders aren't charging garbage trucks high enough fees to generate the money to actually shut down.
Ultimately, the troubled landfill system is "a public health issue and it's about to collapse really soon," says AgustĂn Carbo Lugo, former head of the Solid Waste Authority. He says Puerto Rico also needs to think beyond landfills rather than just open new ones. Recycling rates on the island are about half of what they are on the U.S. mainland.
"We need to look for different alternatives," he says, particularly because Puerto Rico has limited space. That might include a number of other waste management techniques such as "waste-to-energy," which uses methods like incineration to produce electricity and heat.
Most importantly, Carbo Lugo says, "people need to change their behavior and it's quite complex, how you change that in a small island. But it can be done — it just, people need to understand what's at stake here."
Those stakes are clear to Fernandez, who lives next to the landfill. He says that if it closed for good, "I think it would be a better place to live. I know it would be."
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/14/570927809/after-maria-puerto-rico-struggles-under-the-weight-of-its-own-garbage
>After Maria, Puerto Rico Struggles Under The Weight Of Its Own Garbage
The fake news has been reporting on this story for ages.
but the joke is rayciss
EPA files complaint against Puerto Rico municipality for landfill hazards
The complaint calls for the municipality of Toa Alta to stop disposing of solid waste at its landfill and take steps to address public health and environmental threats posed by dangerous conditions at the landfill.
Posted by Posted by Haley Rischar
Published March 01, 2021
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint Feb. 25 on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the District of Puerto Rico that calls for the municipality of Toa Alta to stop disposing of solid waste at its landfill and take steps to address public health and environmental threats posed by dangerous conditions at the landfill, which is being operated in violation of federal and commonwealth solid waste laws.
“The Toa Alta landfill poses a significant threat to the health of nearby communities and the local groundwater aquifer, and the municipality should stop disposing of waste there immediately,” said EPA acting Regional Administrator Walter Mugdan. “The many problems at the landfill are well documented and the municipality must take steps to correct them to better safeguard local communities and the environment.”
The complaint also asks the court to order the municipality of Toa Alta to pay civil penalties for its violations of a 2017 EPA order that addressed problems at the landfill.
The complaint cites three central threats posed by the landfill:
The municipality of Toa Alta is taking inadequate action to prevent large quantities of leachate from escaping into nearby neighborhoods, surface waters and the underlying groundwater aquifer.
The landfill’s slopes in certain areas are not stable and may collapse, potentially endangering people working at the landfill and residents whose homes are near the foot of the landfill.
The municipality has not consistently been placing required soil on top of the waste disposed at the landfill at the end of each day’s disposal activities. Application of this daily cover cuts off access to landfill waste by insects, vermin, birds and trespassers and helps prevent the spread of disease, such as dengue and Zika viruses.
EPA is in communication with the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources concerning the problems at this landfill. EPA is coordinating with the department in efforts to improve solid waste management in Puerto Rico.
https://www.wastetodaymagazine.com/news/epa-complaint-puerto-rico-landfill-hazards/
<>Nobody give a fuck about your Mexican garbage narrative. Stop it.
How bout, no
guess I need to post a few moar
Experts teach Puerto Ricans about waste management
By Krisy Gashler May 7, 2012
Puerto Rico is facing a dirty dilemma:The island is literally running out of places to put its garbage.
Its existing landfills are filling up at an astonishing clip, and there's nowhere else to put more. There were 64 landfills on the 3,515-square-mile island in 1994; by 2020, there are expected to be just four.
TheCornell Waste Management Institute (CWMI) has teamed up with the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems to help address the problem.
CWMI director and extension associate Jean Bonhotal and extension support specialist Mary Schwarz recently conducted trainings in Puerto Rico with 50 college students, who are now spreading the gospel of reduce, reuse and recycle to elementary schools, groups and clubs across the island.
Recycling rates on the island are very low, Bonhotal said. Only 10 percent of waste is recycled on the island, with 90 percent going to landfills, compared with 54 percent going to landfills in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
"Up to 60 percent of the waste stream in Puerto Rico is made up of food scraps and other organic materials that could be composted on site or in a municipal facility," Bonhotal said. "The infrastructure just hasn't been built there."
According to an analysis by Syracuse University, Puerto Ricans also produce more garbage 3.9 pounds per person per day, on average compared with 3.15 pounds on the mainland.
The reason, Bonhotal said, is because there is no tradition, information or infrastructure to encourage waste reduction in Puerto Rico.
Thus, the Cornell trainings addressed waste management and led a hands-on composting workshop, building worm bins, wire bins and a used-pallet bin. They also included a composting curriculum developed by CWMI in both English and Spanish, for students in grades K-12.
"There's a big push to do waste reduction and diversion," she said of Puerto Rican communities.
While the original goal was to train 10 college students, 50 showed up, from six universities across the island.
Bonhotal said the college students began working in schools even before the group had left Puerto Rico.
"We expect the ripple effect from this will be more than just getting this information to the schools," Bonhotal said. "The 50 students who have been trained will go home and have a compost bin in their yards. The schoolchildren will go home and show their parents. That's what we hope for."
The project was part of a larger grant awarded to Syracuse University from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Krisy Gashler is a freelance writer for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/05/garbage-pros-teach-puerto-ricans-about-recycling
<>Nobody give a fuck about your Mexican garbage narrative. Stop it.
How bout, no
guess I need to post a few moar
The Reason The Mob And The Garbage Industry Are So Connected
By Frank F.Oct. 13, 2021 3:27 pm EST
Read More: https://www.grunge.com/632158/the-reason-the-mob-and-the-garbage-industry-are-so-connected/
In "The Sopranos," Tony Soprano lives with his family in a luxurious New Jersey home with a swimming pool. If a layperson asked what Soprano did for a living to live that lavish life, they would get the less-lavish response, "Waste management." Far from a mere punchline dreamed up by the show's writers, the plot detail reflects the reality thatMafia members are often involved in — if not central to — the garbage industry. Mob involvement in waste management is not a mere front, either; gangster groups are often legitimately responsible for garbage collection in the United States, Italy, and beyond.
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The Camorra Mafia group has controlled the garbage industry in Naples, Italy, for around 25 years, according to Slate. Camorra's control has caused a slew of problems in Naples, including careless garbage-collecting practices, extortion, harassment of garbage-collecting competitors, and even illegal dumping of toxic waste. Here's how and why the world of waste became Mafia territory.
Mob-run garbage collection gives new meaning to the words "dirty money"
cash in washing machine
Antonov Roman/Shutterstock
In the mid-20th century, members of the Mafia saw and seized an opportunity when cities began using private companies for commercial waste management, per Mental Floss.Mafia groups began pushing out the competitors, rigging prices, and taking control of garbage collection. Members who were higher up on the chain of command were given faux "consulting" jobs while the lower ranks did the dirty work.
Mafia involvement in the garbage industry makes sense when one considers how the mob generally does business. In choosing "rackets," there are certain essential features: The gig in question must be easy to infiltrate, monopolize, and control, and it must turn a hefty profit, as noted by Slate. Many mob gigs are illicit, from the trafficking of drugs and humans to the distribution of counterfeit and stolen goods.
Waste management has the rare bonus of legality. It is also a particularly stable industry due to universal necessity and the profits garnered by public contracts. On top of all of this,garbage collection provides a way to skim profits and launder dirty money from the mob's not-so-legitimate projects, all while looking solid on a tax return. In other words, waste management allows mobsters to "clean up" in more ways than one.
Martinez Familia Sangeros
The Puerto Rican Mob/The Puerto Rican mafia, consists of 6 crime families, in the northwestern coast of Puerto Rico around the cities of San Juan, Aguadilla, Añasco and Isabela. The family was founded by Quitoni Martinez, JosĂ© "Coquito" LĂłpez Rosario whom later split from the Family to form his own which became a family within the Puerto Rican mafia, Henry Vega, Iván Vega, and Luis Albertos RodrĂguez. They had strong connections with The Cali Cartel and small connections with Los Pepes, Paulino Organization, Gulf Cartel and the Puerto Rican street gang Ă‘etas.[1]
Foundation
The MartĂnez Familia has been called the Puerto Rican mafia and a cartel. Quitoni and Julio GarcĂa, who were very good friends, started the Puerto Rican mafia to reportedly bring their family out of poverty. They started making money selling marijuana and cocaine, making $250,000 every week from their sells. They used the money earned from their drug sales to start their mafia.
In the early 1980s, the mafia started recruiting members offering $1,000 for joining. By 1984 they had more than 30 members in their family. By 1986 they started building their empire by buying $20 million worth of coke from the Colombian cartel known as Cali Cartel. This helped them forge connections with other cartels and mafia around the Caribbean and even Europe. The Puerto Rican mafia started buying boats near the Port of San Juan. They began shipping coke overseas and into the United States. They even started transporting weapons to Spain. They had over 100 members in their family and grew larger through the years.[2]
The Family started loan sharking and extorting. They invested in small business and threatened business, as well as blackmailed other gangs into paying them lump sums of money. This counted for only 23% of their net worth.
>The Puerto Rican Mob/The Puerto Rican mafia, consists of 6 crime families, in the northwestern coast of Puerto Rico around the cities of San Juan, Aguadilla, Añasco and Isabela. The family was founded by Quitoni Martinez,
CarlosMartinez- Operations Supervisor Humacao Hauling -EC Waste …
Operations Supervisor Humacao Hauling · Experiencia: EC Waste · Ubicación: San Juan · 11 contactos en LinkedIn. Mira el perfil de Carlos Martinez en LinkedIn, una red profesional de más de 1.000 millones de miembros.