Global IssuesGUATEMALA: Spreading Expertise on Integrated Waste Management
Guatemala has more than 700,000 clandestine garbage dumps. But a growing network of public and private sector employees are receiving training in integrated waste management that they in turn pass on to others, as part of a unique cooperation initiative with Mexico and Germany.
The Red Giresol Guatemala -- the 'Guatemalan network of environmental promoters for prevention and integrated management of solid waste' -- emerged in 2006 from a 'triangular cooperation' agreement between the governments of these three countries, with initial funding of less than 200,000 dollars.
The partners -- Germany's GTZ development agency, the environment ministries of Mexico and Guatemala, and Guatemala's National Commission on Solid Waste -- designed the programme to train local and national public employees and private sector personnel involved in the fields of environment and sanitation to be environmental promoters or outreach workers.
The promoters receive 140 hours of classroom training in areas like environmental education, waste management, storage and transportation, and techniques for reducing, reusing and recycling waste.
'We want to raise the level and technical expertise of the people dealing with the issue of solid waste in this country,' the head of Red Giresol Guatemala, Julio Urías, told IPS.
So far, 62 promoters have graduated from the course, and 45 are currently taking the classes given by the Red Giresol.
In turn, the environmental promoters offer advice and training to local authorities and others in the field of integrated waste management, with the resultant multiplier effect.
According to the Red Giresol, more than 7,000 people around the country have received training and advice from the promoters.
'We have replicated the network at the local level, and have trained some 70 people in this area since 2008,' environmental promoter Erick Urrutia, an agronomic engineer who is an environment ministry delegate in the northwestern Guatemalan province of Quiché, told IPS.
In an alliance with NGOs, Urrutia provided technical support for the construction of waste treatment plants in Chajul and Nebaj, two municipalities in Quiché that were hit hard by the 1960-1996 armed conflict.
Another promoter, environmental engineer José Luis Dubón, participated in a waste management project in the impoverished rural community of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, population 10,500 -- one of the few municipalities in this Central American country to have an integrated solid waste management plan in place.
The villagers separate organic from inorganic waste, and twice a week garbage is collected in the area, which is located more than 1,500 metres above sea level in the central province of Sacatepéquez.
At the treatment plant, which processes some 40 tons of waste a month, inorganic materials are further separated and classified, and the organic waste is used to produce compost, Sergio Gómez, from the village of San Antonio, explained to IPS.
The compost is stored up and sold, and waste products like glass and plastic are sold for recycling.
But Dubón said 'there should be more follow-up with the promoters, who should be allowed to carry out more specific tasks with the environment ministry.'
Guatemala's 14 million people produce 1.26 million tons of garbage a year, according to the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies and the Municipal Information System. And the National Commission on Solid Waste reports that there are more than 700,000 clandestine dumps in the country.
The aim of the Red Giresol us to become a permanent source of training and expertise in specialised areas, Milena Ramírez, a health ministry employee, told IPS.
Not only government employees receive training from the network. Eduardo Aguilar, who was trained as an environmental promoter, works for the Basic Port company that handles solid waste from ships that anchor in Puerto Barrios, a Caribbean port in the northeastern province of Izabal.
Thanks to the training he received, he drew up 'a guide to management of solid waste for the ships that dock in Guatemalan ports', based on the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (Marpol Convention for short).
Triangular cooperation involves joint projects between a donor country (Germany in this case), an emerging economy (Mexico) and a poor country.
In the case of the Red Giresol, successful bilateral cooperation between Germany and Mexico is being expanded to other Latin American countries: the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and El Salvador, besides Guatemala.
In Mexico, the Red Giresol has trained 220 promoters since 2004, who have been 'promoting integrated waste management in municipalities. The network has taken on a dynamic of its own,' Axel Macht, director of GTZ's programme for environmental, urban and industrial management in Mexico, told IPS.
The Red Giresol will hold its first 'international congress of environmental promoters' from Oct. 18 to 22 in the Mexican resort city of Cancún, where participants will take a close look at how the local micro-networks are functioning.
* Additional reporting by Emilio Godoy in Mexico City.
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service