Residents of a small community outside the city of Guantánamo, 929 km east of Havana, have turned a dump into an environmental center that has reduced emissions of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) into the atmosphere. The Ecological Processing Center for Urban Waste (CEPRU), winner of this year's national environmental prize, emerged five years ago, though more recently, thanks to support from the Global Environment Facility, it also eliminated the unregulated burning of plastic waste.

Around one ton of plastic waste– of high and low density — arrives at the center each month. Now they are reused in a variety of ways in the Guantánamo neighborhood of La Isleta, home to 566 people.

The new practice eliminates the generation of toxic gases like dioxins and furans, which represents a six-percent reduction of emissions into the atmosphere, Fabio Fajardo, coordinator in Cuba of the GEF small grants program, told Tierramérica.