Mexico

Environmental Problems

Due to the unmanageability of the quantity of the trash Mexicans generate, refuse-related environmental problems abound. Disposal issues plague communities of all sizes, though garbage sanitation sometimes comprises up to 40 percent of cities' budgets. But in 2010, according to the World Bank, Mexico had only 97 officially controlled waste disposal sites. Just 11 of those sites were mechanized or manual landfills, as opposed to dumps.

Mechanized landfills are engineered and must have sanitation instruments to ensure proper waste management, while manual landfills are intended to be sanitary and are small enough that employees manage most quotidian tasks by hand, employing technological instruments only for irregular large tasks. In Mexico, however, landfills do not meet most industrialized nations' environmental standards; they are poorly lined, spilling toxins into the soil and groundwater. The World Bank has found that only 15 percent of the nation's municipal solid waste (MSW) is safely treated upon disposal.

One exception, Mexico City's innovative Prados de la Montana controlled contaminant release landfill, treats its leachates (the water that escapes from the landfill after percolating through the waste) via chemical and biological processes. It is the only landfill in the country to do so. Improved leachate management is the World Bank's first recommendation to improve Mexico's landfills. Various entities are working to meet that recommendation by increasing composting and recycling facilities.

Illegal Dumps

In contrast to landfills, dumps are simple, open-air, human-made pits or natural quarries where discarded trash accumulates in an uncontrolled or semicontrolled manner. Mexico City alone features an estimated 1,200 illegal dumps. Dumps present extreme environmental health risks, producing stench and attracting disease carrying vectors, including rats, flies, dogs, and even pigs that sometimes end up as food for squatters and nearby residents. Because of these risks, dumping grounds are usually situated within the most impoverished parts of the community. In the poorest parts of the country, residents simply burn their trash, regardless of type.

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