On connections corner this week we are learning about the environmental challenges and opportunities in the Dominican Republic through our partner and representative Kirkas SRL. Kirkas SRL is a company focused on consulting the needs that Dominican Republic has to Finnish companies and today its CEO Thomas Bergdahl shares some intel on the biggest environmental challenges the country is facing.
Photo: Thomas Bergdahl. Duquesa is a 60-metre high waste pile in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, covering 120 hectares.
Dominican Republic’s environmental challenges
According to Bergdahl, Dominican Republic faces many environmental issues: “Most visible problems here have to do with drinking water, municipal wastewater treatment and Duquesa’s garbage dump”. Duquesa waste dump, located in Santo Domingo, the capital of Dominical Republic, is the world’s fifth largest landfill.1 “The amount of waste there is something you can’t even imagine, about 4000 tons of garbage is unloaded there every day. None of this waste is pre-sorted, and it’s ranging from nail polish and armchairs to leftover food,” Bergdahl explains. According to him, even though there is no public municipal waste recycling system in place yet, there are local people working in this landfill that collect plastics, metals and carboards and sell them to recycling companies.
Now is the time to act!
The government of Dominican Republic wants to turn the Duquesa landfill into a park with no environmental hazards.1 The closure project began in March 2023 and projected timeline was 5 years. However, the project is currently at hault. According to Bergdahl’s colleague Mr. Baudy Antigua, the delay in environmental projects is a common problem in Dominican Republic due to the lack of strong political leadership.
Berghdahl sees that the waste dump’s closure project would produce big opportunities for companies like EPSE: “Something needs to be done to the wastewater seeping from Duquesa, and this is the opportunity to market and sell the EPSE™ Method to this area.” He elaborates that there are also many places in the Dominican Republic that could highly benefit from EPSE’s solution, such as Pueblo Viejo and Cerro de Maimon metal mines, Zona Franca parks, paint factories, landfills, and coal power stations.
Importance of new innovative solutions
Though Dominican Republic has environmental challenges that negatively affect people’s daily lives, Bergdahl is optimistic for the future. “This partnership with EPSE is very promising, and we are hopeful about the EPSE™ Method’s potential to help with the wastewater treatment in this area. Here in Dominican Republic, the industries cover the use of approximately 15 % of all natural water resources.” He highlights, that when considering the challenges brought by climate change, the importance of industrial water treatment and recycling can’t be stressed enough, and that’s why the world needs new innovative solutions.
- Agudo, A. 2023. The largest open-air landfill in Latin America is closing down. El País 22.8.2023. Referred 9.4.2024. Available online: https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-22/the-largest-open-air-landfill-in-latin-america-is-closing-down.html#