Problems in the garbage recollection in Buenos Aires

Since mid2012, the recollection of garbage in the City of Buenos Aires has had its ups and downs. There have been some days when people woke up and found the bag of garbage that they had left the night before on the street, or when they went to take their bag to the special container, it was completely full.

This was because the employees of the Ceamse (company in charge of managing waste and developing national environment) had an uncertain future. By March 2013, the landfills where the waste of the whole city and surroundings is left would be full. This would bring unemployment to Ceamse’s people and of course a chaos in the City for the lack of garbage recollection.

For this reason, in 2012 there has been several months of uncertainty and many days where the garbage hasn’t been collected and it began to accumulate. In addition, there was a lack of communication between the government of the City of Buenos Aires and the Province of Buenos Aires.

In order to keep updated and to try to see if there was a solution for this, the “Asociacion Gremial de Obreros Y Empleados de la CEAMSE (AGOEC)” [Ceamse’s Union] met the employees in several informative assemblies.

After several days of no recollection, the trucks went to collect the garbage of many days, but the system collapsed, so it took some days for it to go back to normal.

It is estimated that around 60 tons of garbage are gathered in the City of Buenos Aires and about 11,000 tons are collected in the surrounding localities, known as Gran Buenos Aires.

In relation to the solution, in January 2013, the government of the City of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri and the government of Gran Buenos Aires, Daniel Scioli, met during the opening of the new waste treatment factory in José León Suárez. This new factory and Mauricio Macri’s commitment to reduce the waste of the City of Buenos Aires in 78% should make the system work properly.

Currently, the waste recollection situation seems to be normal, although there have been some union problems that could bring new chaos to the city; let’s hope it doesn’t.