The Municipality of Montevideo had sent a draft decree to the Departmental Board to increase the amounts of the fines for irregular discharges, which was approved on Thursday, December 8 by 24 votes in 25 in the room.
The decree establishes new regulations to regulate landfills in the urban and suburban territory of Montevideo, with special emphasis on landfills that are carried out with waste dumps, something that is illegal and now carries a very significant fine.
In the case of waste dumping on land, the fines now have a minimum of 350 UR, which is currently around $500,000 for dumping of up to 50 m3.
The fines are increased based on the size of the volume of waste that is generated. The maximum amount of the fine became 50,000 UR, which is currently equivalent to $75,000,000.
The director of the Department of Environmental Development, Guillermo Monccechi, reported that the objective is not to collect but to have “a fine large enough to discourage the dumping of waste and encourage the correct work to be done” to transfer it to the Final Disposal Site in Felipe Cardoso.
wasteland cleaning
Additionally, the Departmental Board also promulgated another decree that had already been approved and is part of the same strategy. Faced with a private vacant lot, which the IM must clean because it has residues, up to now the regulations required going to Justice and intimidating the owner.
This decree allows the Municipality of Montevideo to act quickly for health reasons, prior to a diagnosis, and establishes a minimum fine of 70 UR, in addition to charging the owner for the cost of this cleaning action through the corresponding administrative steps.
Work continues on:
• Control and inspection tasks through the Geofence system.
• Routine inspections in waste carriers.
• Inspection of cargo in the Waste Treatment and Final Disposal Service.
• Operation control of the satellite tracking system of the vehicles.
• Survey and inspections in establishments that generate non-domestic waste.
More controls on Waste Transport Companies
The objective is to control that the special waste transport services carried out by private companies fully comply with the regulations on the matter provided in the current departmental regulations.
All companies that transport waste in the department of Montevideo must have collection and transport authorization granted by the Cleaning Division.
The vehicles involved in these tasks must comply with national and departmental tax obligations, be duly identified by name or company name and telephone number, as well as have the authorization for the final disposal of waste.
The collection and transport authorizations that are granted are precarious and revocable (Article D.1928,2).
