A waste scavenger plays football at Gramacho Garden Landfill, on the northern outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 3, 2012. Gramacho Garden, the largest landfill in Latin America, was closed down on June 3. The landfill, covering an area of 1.3 million square meters and devouring about 8,000 tons of garbage per day, had been stirring environmental concerns since its inauguration in 1978. Rio de Janeiro city had gradually closed down Gramacho Garden Landfill since April 2011. Built on the northern outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and next to Guanabara Bay, the landfill had been denounced by environmentalists for a long period. Based on researches, Gramacho Garden Landfill discharged 800 cubic meters of poisonous sewage to Guanabara Bay every day even though the clay shelter was built, causing locals' incidence of enteritis, skin disease and liver disease increased. The accumulation of heavy metal cast impacts on locals' health little by little as well. Sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide released from the accumulated garbage, at the same time, caused the incidence of respiratory diseases increased and even dead fetus and all kinds of congenital diseases. Therefore, Rio de Janeiro municipal government decided to totally close down Gramacho Garden Landfill. Instead, some modern garbage disposal centers located in the inland regions would "digest" the garbage of Gramacho Garden Landfill. According to a Rio de Janeiro sanitation company, a series of environmental recovery work would be done on the area of the closed-down landfill, including soil purification, methane removal from the landfill and vegetation recovery. It was estimated at least 15 years to complete the whole ecological recovery project and then the area could be reconsidered to be shifted into a park. At the same time, the methane collecting project was underway expected to acquire 150,000 cubic meters of methane per day in the future, equal to half of the total demand of natural gas of the Rio de Janeiro state each year. (Xinhua/Weng Xinyang)
