Aserrí Landfill Approved As Río Azul Set to Close

With the principal garbage dump for the Central Valley – Río Azul – scheduled to close next week, officials have announced that a new landfill in Aserrí, a mountain town south of San José, could be ready within months to receive a large portion of the area’s garbage.

Having received approval from the Environment and Energy Ministry’s Technical Secretariat (SETENA), the Canadian-based waste-management company Berthier EBI told the daily La Nación construction of the new landfill would begin in the next two weeks.

The 25-hectare garbage depository to be built in Aserrí would be ready for operation in five or six months, is expected to receive 700 metric tons of rubbish a day and would operate for 20 years, EBI Manager Juan Vincente Durán told the daily.

Residents and businesses from the Central Valley cantons of La Union, Cartago, Montes de Oca, Tibás, Coronado, Alajuelita, Desamparados, Moravia, Goicoechea, Aserrí and Escazú generate 750 tons of garbage a day, La Nación said.

Only the latter three do not send their trash to the Río Azul landfill, located in La Union, east of San José. The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV) ordered Río Azul to shut down by Nov. 19.

EBI officials expect the municipalities – which by law are in charge of garbage collection and disposal – to deposit their garbage in Aserrí once the new landfill is open. In the meantime, they can send their waste to EBI’s other landfill in La Carpio, on the western edge of San José.

Residents from the cantons of Aserrí and Desamparados – where the garbage trucks will transit to deliver all the garbage – have protested against the landfill’s construction, saying they do not want it built near them for health and environmental concerns.