Santiago city government says the contracting of Cilpen Global Quality Recycling to operate the recycling system at the Rafey Garbage Dump has brought an integral solution to the garbage problem in the second largest Dominican city. In an interview in Diario Libre, Mayor Abel Martínez said that the solid wastes at the dump are now being recycled correctly without this costing the city government. Much of the recycled materials are exported by the company.
Martínez said that now only organic wastes are taken to the Rafey city garbage dump. The solid wastes are previously separated resulting in much less volume of garbage for the city dump. Martínez explained that the plant started processing 300 tons, moving later to 850 tons and now is processing 1,000 tons per day. He said the city government has savings of RD$6 million that are being used in other areas.
“We have moved ahead and Santiago is the first city or municipality to give adequate treatment to the final disposal of its solid wastes since beginning the operations some five months ago,” he told Diario Libre in an interview. The plant began processing of garbage in July 2017.
Adilberto Crisóstomo, general manager of Cilpen Global, has explained the full-phased project calls for a US$400 million investment with 2,000 direct jobs being created. A first phase called for the installation of a waste assessment and classification plant for urban solid waste, the first in the country. He said this plant uses the most modern technology in Latin America and has capacity to process up to 30 tonnes per hour.
A second phase contemplates the installation of an additional plant with the same capacity to come into operation in April 2018. The third phase of the project contemplates the production of energy from garbage and is slated to go into operation at the end of 2019, making Santiago the first city in the country to produce energy from its garbage. Santiago garbage is estimated to be able to produce 80 megawatts of energy.
As reported, the Cilpen Global plant has hired 50 of the garbage scavengers that worked at the Rafey dump.
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25 October 2017
