Luján closes largest open-air landfill in Argentina
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Residents of Luján, Argentina are breathing easier after the country’s largest open-air landfill ceased operations on July 1st.
For over 50 years, the 13.8-hectare site received tons of untreated waste, creating smoke, odors, and contamination that impacted nearby neighborhoods and the livelihoods of informal recyclers. The municipality closed the landfill as part of a larger plan funded by a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to create a comprehensive waste management system with a new treatment and final disposal center.
While the remediation of the landfill isn’t complete and faced a legal challenge, the closure is already noticeable for residents. Luján now sends its 97.8 tons of daily waste to the Ceamse waste management facility at a monthly cost of 80 million pesos, representing 45.7% of revenue from general services taxes. The city is also integrating former informal recyclers into a new recycling center.
Sergio Almada, a long-time activist, noted the immediate improvement in quality of life, saying, “We can open the windows without smelling the odor and having the smoke we had gotten used to.” The municipality plans to fully cover the remaining waste and eventually transform the site into an ecological park, but funding for these next steps is currently stalled.
Approximately three hectares of waste remain exposed at the "sacrifice zone," the area that continued to receive trash until the final closure.
