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It is estimated that we generate more than 2,000 million tons of solid waste per year, but only 55% is managed in controlled facilities. “Humanity treats our planet like a garbage dump, we are destroying our only home,” declared the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, on March 30 in the first International Zero Waste Day, which encourages people, companies and governments to prevent and minimize waste, promoting the circular economy. The UN highlights that this mainly affects the impoverished population and especially the almost 4 billion people who do not have access to controlled waste disposal facilities.
In Paraguay it is not recycled at origin. Less than 1% of households do so. There is a lack of environmental education and there are hardly any differentiated containers. There are also no official facilities to separate waste in an organized manner. Collection does not reach all areas or does so infrequently and the garbage ends up burned, buried, in open fields or in the channels of the many Paraguayan rivers. In the best of cases, it reaches an official landfill, where the hands of thousands of people who work informally dissect it in search of the precious recyclable materials that they will sell to earn their bread. They are the so-called hooks, the lowest link in the Paraguayan recycling chain. According to data from the Moisés Bertoni Foundation, of the 111,000 people who are dedicated to the waste recovery sector in Paraguay, 100,000 are basic recyclers and hooks. Both obtain recyclable materials and sell them for little money to recovery companies, intermediaries and recycling centers.
![Informal trucks collect and move garbage in the capital of Paraguay.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/-3ydgd_mBx-ZKYYFxpvX883r0CY=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/NL3BC3TXWJDTZINMQYOHDLB4G4.jpg)
Hooks ,at the base of the recycling chain
Dominga Céspedes is 64 years old and is hook for more than two decades in Cateura, the Asunción garbage dump, the largest in Paraguay. Every morning he climbs the mountain of trash in front of his house with gloved hands to sift through other people’s waste. “I like my job, although it is very hard because it is very hot from 8 in the morning. “We work with sun, rain and mud.” She is a leader of the Municipal Landfill Workers Association (Asotravermu), one of the three main organizations of hooks in the area, next to Cosigapar and Sigren. “In total, we are more than 500 members, women and men aged 18 and over. We have regulations and statutes, so as not to kill ourselves over material. If someone has bad behavior, they are suspended for a few days,” she explains. Cateura is in the belt of misery that surrounds Asunción, in Bañado Sur, where, like Céspedes, thousands of impoverished people live who subsist with irregular and precarious jobs. The garbage dump gained international fame thanks to the renowned Cateura orchestra, with instruments made from waste in which the children of those who barely make a living sifting through the garbage play. It opened in 1985, and has reached maximum capacity. Since 2020, it has operated as a Transfer Plant, an intermediate point where valuable waste is separated before taking the rest to the final place for disposal, in the nearby municipality of Villa Hayes.
Cateura accumulates environmental disasters, such as September 2020 fire, when a huge cloud of toxic smoke affected the entire city. Since the late nineties there have been municipal projects to close the landfill and environmentally recover the area. But hundreds of people who survive thanks to being surrounded by garbage fear losing their source of income. “In Bañado Sur we live by recycling and I hope it never ends,” says Céspedes, who asks for more institutional support: “We want our work to be dignified and for the Government to help us. We would like them to set up a recycling plant and work as a cooperative, collecting the garbage that people separate from home,” he says. What worries the most hooks Lately it is the international smuggling of recycled materials that has plummeted prices. “They bring recycled materials from countries like Argentina to sell cheaper to companies and that affects us. In recent years, I have gone from earning about 1 million guaraníes -127 euros- a week, to earning about 400 guaraníes -50 euros-”, claims Céspedes.
Environmental protection
Cateura is very close to the Paraguay River, in a flood-prone area. “It was installed there nothing more and nothing less than on the recommendation of the World Bank, but it is very dangerous,” says David Cardozo, graduate in Environmental Sciences, professor of landscaping at the School of Architecture of the National University of Asunción (UNA) and Director General Environmental Management of the Municipality of Asunción until 2020. “There is a risk of leakage and it is highly flammable, due to the type of waste and the gases concentrated under the ground. “We should not occupy the water territory, not even with human settlements, much less with a landfill.” He recognizes that, although Paraguay has had a robust Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Law since 2009, there is a lack of control and it is not enforced.
A lot of garbage ends up anywhere and without proper treatment. Poor waste disposal is associated with several urban problems. For example, in trash-filled streams, stagnant water hosts mosquitoes that transmit tropical diseases. Paraguay has recently suffered several dengue epidemics and that of chikungunya in 2023 has been the largest in the country. Furthermore, when it rains, the flow carries garbage and clogs storm drains. “First we destroyed our natural waterways and paved the entire city, and then we clogged them with garbage. That generates a lot of flooding,” explains Cardozo, who maintains that cities must be thought of taking the environment into account. He cites the concept of biodivercities, promoted by CAF-Development Bank of Latin America. Cities that incorporate local and regional biodiversity in their planning to restore the balance between urban management and nature.
Although Cardozo is one of those who thinks that the best thing we can do to combat the increase in global garbage is to reduce consumption and would prefer to trust public institutions rather than what he believes are possible false solutions, he is aware of the Paraguayan reality and welcomes the recent appearance of several recycling and circular economy initiatives. “Trash that isn’t trash,” he calls it.
![A stream in La Chascarita that lacks collection is used as a garbage dump.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/-FSUHNk4Su7a9YDfXPcoCqEyP6g=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/ASRBRKCY2ZHGRCG47RMWNBNBWY.jpg)
Circular economy: the business of recycling
“In the wrong hand, materials are garbage, in the right ones they are resources,” says Mauricio Solalinde, civil engineer and manager of Circular Economy at the Moises Bertoni Foundation, which has been dedicated to sustainable development for 32 years. “Faced with the inaction and void of Paraguayan public policy, the private sector is mobilizing,” he explains. In 2021, they launched the initiative My neighborhood without waste, which promotes recycling in Asunción. “In Paraguay there are other circular economy initiatives for waste such as Latitude R either Ecological Solutions, but this is the largest waste recovery project in the country, by volume of investment, results and presence,” he maintains. According to data from the Moisés Bertoni Foundation, in 2022 they recovered more than 4,000 tons of materials, reaching 400 homes, 100 companies and 20 recyclers who can be contacted via WhatsApp to request a home collection service. The 2023 goal is to reach more than 500 homes, 150 companies, increase the number of recyclers and recover 10,000 tons of materials such as plastic, metal, paper and glass.
The first thing they did to enter the recycling ecosystem is to be clear about the national panorama. “In Paraguay there is a lack of data and what there is is obsolete. The Ministry of the Environment does a study every 10 years in one of the 263 municipalities,” argues Solalinde. She says that the institutionality of the Moisés Bertoni Foundation allowed them to obtain data directly from private organizations under a confidentiality agreement and, after analyzing it, in 2022 they began to develop public policy as a group promoting the circular economy in Paraguay. “We brought together the ministries of Industry, Commerce and Environment, and we coordinated a multi-sector space with public institutions, the productive private sector and civil society. We work on four strategic axes: sustainable production, responsible consumption, inclusive recycling and public policy,” she concludes.
They have the support of the Paraguayan Government, the United Nations and the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank), but the correct management of garbage is not only a social and environmental issue, it also generates a lot of money. Companies such as Coca Cola, Nestlé and Tetra Pak are behind the initiative My neighborhood without waste, which explains that it works thanks to the market economy. Large companies are interested in investing to recover the precious raw materials that are hidden in garbage bags.
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