Raisa Banfield: ‘The dilemma of the garbage crisis is not to whom we pass the problem, it is to establish the mechanisms’

Various communities that make up the 26 corregimientos of the district of Panama are immersed in small “pataconcitos” or corners full of garbage due to the lack of collection, which has become a health crisis for many citizens.

For the environmentalist and former deputy mayor of the capital commune, Raisa Banfield, the pertinent dilemma at this time in the face of the crisis is not to whom the problem is passed, but how to establish the mechanisms to solve the underlying problem.

“I will defend municipal responsibility for waste collection now and always, because that is the way it is throughout the world, that is the main function of a municipality: to keep the city clean. It is very strange the phenomenon that happened in Panama that is created a National Authority to collect garbage from a city, because the rest of the municipalities have to see how they do it,” he said.

He added that the problem is not who collects it, but the system that does not work and the “main problem is that we continue to treat waste as garbage, as long as we see waste or residue as garbage, we will continue to feed the problem; it is shown by IDB studies , World Bank, that 70% of what we are throwing away is reusable or recyclable material, which means that it is raw material for the generation of other businesses”.