Holbox, Q.R. — Problems of stagnant garbage in the Holbox transfer site have begun again. Lázaro Cárdenas Mayor Nivardo Mena Villanueva acknowledged the serious garbage problem on the island.
He says the transfer site has completely collapsed and operates at maximum capacity, representing a risk of water table contamination. According to Mena Villanueva, there is in excess of 40,000 tons of garbage sitting in the island’s transfer site. The solution, he says, is thermo valorization.
“Today it is over saturated. We have to resume what we did four years ago with thermal valorization. When we worked on the garbage problem in the past it was through a system called thermo valorization in which the PET from the garbage is separated and recycled.
“The rest is melted and is friendly to the environment. We have between 40,000 and 50,000 tons that have been collected during the last few years, and what happens is that it really overwhelms us, but it is super important to clean it up,” he said.
The thermal valorization method was used during his administration in 2018-2021, which he says, is a practical and reliable solution to clean up the landfill and eliminate that waste.
The mayor mentioned that the state governor, Mara Lezama, arranged and provided resources to remove the garbage from the island of Holbox and transfer it to the Kantunilkín landfill, but noted that this measure, despite providing a temporary solution, generated another problem which was overcrowding the final disposal site in the capital of Lázaro Cárdenas, so it was stopped.
He stressed that once they have the resources to be able to apply the thermal valorization, they have set a deadline of six months to free up the Holbox garbage dump.
He also says he is aware that despite positive results in the past, they could once again face legal issues with environmental authorities, which happened during his previous administration.
“Transparency is that nothing appears against the law. If someone said that I was a magician because I made the trash disappear last time, well, there are two things, either it was done well or we buried it, and the environmentalists accused us of burying it because they went for the practical solution.
“But they did all the investigations, tests, and even the Navy did the tests and they never found anything,” he said.
