Public Works Minister Deligne Ascención accepts the challenge of keeping garbage off the side of roads and has enlisted dozens of city governments to assist in the endeavor.
Minister Ascención said that the mayors that officially begin on 24 April 2024 will work in coordination with the Ministry of Public Works to clean the roads and highways under the new “My Clean Highway” program, with funds from the Ministry for permanent maintenance plans for the country’s trunk roads. The program begins on 26 April 2024.
“With this program, the MOPC seeks to have a favorable impact on the environment and health, as well as promote a culture of cleanliness on public roads, reporting that every day, brigades from the institution lift an average of about 240 tons each month,” he said.
He explained that the program also seeks that “those who visit us can enjoy an organized and clean country, that what one sees in other societies with a minimum of organization in their main roads, we can see here as well.”
Ascención said the effort is a challenge because it involves a change in behaviors. “Cultures are not changed with programs or specific actions, but with the implementation of a habit of cleanliness, organization and order, where the main actor is the citizen,” said the minister. “It does not matter how many times landfills are cleaned or eliminated if getting people to stop throwing waste on the roads is not promoted, and taking into account that the cleanest town is not the one that cleans the most, but rather the one that cleans the least dirty,” said the minister.
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Ministry of Public Works
18 April 2024