Chile warns of health risk from illegal landfills, upgrades waste trucks

Regional health officials in Chile’s Los Lagos region warned that all municipal landfills in the Chiloé province are operating outside sanitary regulations, contaminating groundwater and posing an imminent public‑health crisis. Seremi Evelyn Brintrup called on the mayors of the affected communes to accelerate the construction of an Integral Treatment Center in north Castro and noted that waste from Ancud is already being shipped out of the province due to insufficient landfill capacity.

At the same time, the municipality of Valdivia completed a full renewal of its garbage‑collection fleet. The new trucks are equipped with 360‑degree cameras, GPS tracking, radio communication devices and dual‑plate compactors, aiming to increase collection frequency, expand coverage in difficult‑terrain neighborhoods, enhance worker safety and reduce maintenance costs, replacing twelve aging vehicles from 2018.