El The La Bebida landfill: from problem to integrative solution.

Abstract

The socio-environmental problem of the La Bebida Landfill, located in the Rivadavia department, San Juan, Argentina, is presented. An outline is made of its historical evolution and the precarious settlement on Pellegrini Street associated with it. The different strategies carried out by the successive governments of the Province of San Juan are explained, especially at the beginning of the 21st century. It was understood that the solution to the Landfill problem had to contemplate the inhabitants of the Pellegrini Street settlement to constitute an integrative solution from a social and economic point of view applying a State Policy. 

The solution to the problem was addressed by the competent authorities, projecting a future called “San Juan Environmental Complex”, made up of an Environmental Technologies park; an environmental studies center: Anchipurac and a Regional Environmental Technological Industrial Park: PITAR. The Ministry of the Environment began by carrying out a comprehensive census of the Pellegrini Street settlement to try to ensure that the majority of its male inhabitants could join as workers in the different parts of the San Juan Environmental Complex. The previous activity allowed a beneficial social impact to occur among the inhabitants of the settlement in different dimensions: work, health and education.