By Paola Velasco
With the growth of San Miguel de Allende, the importance of solid waste management, garbage dumps, and awareness regarding them has also grown. The Municipality has several collection points and dumps for different types of waste. One of these is the esplanade in front of the Municipal Nursery in the upper part of the city. There have been problems here for a number of years, because past administrations received several complaints, and debris and garbage was collected in fields where people simply dumped it. Garbage was dumped in empty fields, no man’s land, where those who did it felt that, «if they don’t see me, I can do it.”
The current administration, under the direction of Ecology and the Environment, recently did a cleanup in the area, with the support of heavy machinery and garbage trucks. But what is lacking is the education of citizens. The very next morning, not even 24 hours after the cleanup, two mattresses were found lying in the middle of the dirt road.
Proper garbage disposal is everyone’s responsibility. The greater the population, the greater the production of garbage, so we need to know how to lessen the impact. People need to be informed about how to use recycling and proper management measures. Garbage needs to go in its place, not on the street or an open field.
The workers of the Municipality of San Miguel commented: “This is how we do our work, but the people do not respect us. They saw us working all day yesterday and today, when we arrived, there was garbage again.”
