Santo Domingo.- In a black bag which can hold 12 pounds of solid waste, a homemaker totes used plastic bottles, cardboard and faded porcelain which had been gathering dust in her closet.

She doesn’t give much thought that what’s trash for her is the cash thousands of people live from the industry to gather, transport, store and recycle materials called solid waste.

After placing it in the trash tank city workers or contractors pick it up with a garbage truck that passes in a regular schedule in certain zones, and taken to Duquesa, now converted from an open dump to a landfill.

Santo Domingo East City Sanitation director Alejandro Perez said the municipality pays a company RD$3 million per month to collect trash in residential zones.

He said for each ton of trash collected in the streets of Santo Domingo East the contractor makes US$26 gross.

The figures reveal that the 2.3 million people who inhabit the country’s most populous municipality, of 479.19 square kilometers, produce 3,223 tons of solid wastes every 30 days.