In the Santiago metropolitan region there are more than 340 clandestine and illegal garbage dumps, occupying a combined area of nine square kilometers that could otherwise be used for 2,000 soccer fields, concluded a study by the private Andrés Bello National University (UNAB). Around 80 percent of the garbage in those dumps is residential or household waste.

“There is a lack of serious policy to take on the problem of illegal dumps,” Carlos Rungruangsakorn, of UNAB, told Tierramérica. He says regulations are needed to penalize, including with prison sentences, those who run small dump sites, there should be environmental education for the population, and municipal governments must do their duty in enforcing the rules.

Forty percent of Chile's population of 16 million live in the Santiago metropolitan area.