Marn looks to build more landfills

El Salvador's environment and natural resources ministry (Marn) has concluded an environmental study and identified 12 possible sites to develop sanitary landfills. The idea is to put an end to open-air dumps. Of the 262 municipalities throughout the country, 211 have waste collection services, Marn spokesperson Ángel Iraheta told BNamericas. The recently concluded study found that nearly 90% of those municipalities have low capacity and inadequate waste services. "On a national level, El Salvador produces 2,715t/d of waste," he said. "The country has 147 open-air dumps and eight sanitary landfills for that waste." Marn will now carry out environmental impact studies to determine which of those 12 sites will be used to build three or four new sanitary landfills at a cost of some US$4mn each, he said, elaborating on a report from El Diario de Hoy. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has provided a US$38mn loan for studies and landfill development. The eight existing sanitary landfills serve 25 municipalities. The remaining municipalities have had difficulties grouping together to share landfills due to local government leaders' political differences, according to reports. However, "they [the municipalities] have no other alternative - they will have to group together," according to Iraheta.