Diario Libre newspaper reports that Greater Santo Domingo’s vehicle graveyard is growing, reflecting the present and future serious environmental problems of many vehicles circulating in the metropolis and the thousands deposited in the dump located in northern Santo Domingo. Diario Libre reflects on the junkyard’s environmental threat regarding accumulated wastes and the area being home to rodents.
The graveyard is where abandoned vehicles end up, also where vehicles await dismantling or recycling are kept. Most of the vehicles are just left to decay.
Diario Libre reports that the graveyard is now the last abode to more than 21,291 vehicles, including motorcycles.
The Transit and Ground Transport Safety Agency (Digesett) manages the automobile cemetery. Digesett director, Brigade General Ramon Antonio Guzmán Peralta says that of the 21,000 units, 25% are worthless and just left there to rot. He says of these 5,250 are what’s left of motorcycles.
General Guzmán says every day between 150-500 vehicles are brought to be stored at the Centro de Retencion de Vehículos El Coco, the former dog-racing field (then known as the Canódromo). When dog-racing was outlawed, the area became Greater Santo Domingo’s car junkyard.
It stores dundreds of the vehicles that have been abandoned on city streets. Yet most are vehicles brought there by the transit police and later not claimed by their owners. He mentioned thousands of abandoned vehicles were involved in traffic accidents. Most of the motorcycles at El Coco are still there because their owners do not have ownership paperwork to claim these.
General Guzmán says they have been able to piece together more than 5,000 motorcycles and 46 vehicles that will soon be auctioned.
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
4 March 2021