Every year the problem repeats itself, as soon as the rainy season begins in Costa Rica many streets in the metropolitan area flood, causing a lot of different problems; the cause is of common knowledge, the sewage system is clogged with trash, but the efforts of the municipalities are insufficient, people continue to throw garbage where it doesn’t belong, and the consequences affect everyone.

The San José Municipality states that every week they clean close to 30 tons of trash from the San José sewage system. In some areas of the capital city the Municipality has implemented other measures, such as establishing garbage pickup services from Monday through Saturday.

Plastic bottles, clothes left behind by homeless, plastic bags and wrappers are just part of the waste cleaned up every day. The trash that is not picked up eventually ends up in rivers where it causes a whole new set of problems.

“We collect the trash, but people just continue to throw trash where it doesn’t belong, the sewage system is just one of them, empty lots, rivers serve the same purpose. It is a cultural thing, we take out the trash today and tomorrow it’s filled up again”, said a worker at the San José Municipality.

The first rains of this 2017 already caused floods in areas like Tibás, a community that for years now has struggled with the management of its solid wastes; other communities affected by this problem include Curridabat, Montes de Oca and Pavas.

Out of the 144 flooding emergencies the firefighters had to attend in 2016, 52 were caused by trash that clogged the rainwater drainage.

Municipalities require additional financial and human resources to continue to battle this problem. The San José Municipality has 35 employees in charge of cleaning the sewage system of the whole county.

“People complain when the water floods their homes or the streets, but if you just take a look down a sewage you will see it is filled with trash. How can people blame the Municipality when other “filthy” people are causing the problem? The Municipality does what it can”, complained Harold Oconitrillo supervisor of the cleaning department of the rainwater drainage system at the Municipality of San José in an interview with La Nación.

The problem gets worse as many of the sewage systems are missing their lid, the lids are stolen and the trash goes straight to the pipes.

According to data by the Municipality, in Costa Rica only 4 out of every 10 homes recycle.