NewsWorldEcuador, overflowing with cocaine: they already use it to make concrete

Ecuador, overflowing with cocaine: they already use it to make concrete

The fight against drug trafficking in Ecuador is paying off. The government’s policies William Lasso they have managed to harm the cocaine industry in the country, which is even causing a problem for the police: they cannot cope.

The problems in destroying the seized cocaine means that it either accumulates in police warehouses (with the consequent risk that it entails), or is recycled for other uses. Cocaine is, after all, powder, and as such it can be used to make masses for various purposes. For example, make concrete for works.

According to official data, the Ecuadorian authorities have seized more than 400 tons of cocaine in the last two years, which has placed it on the podium of the countries that seize the most cocaine in the world. Only the United States and Colombia are more successful in quantitative terms, according to official data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

400
tons of cocaine

Seized in Ecuador in the last two years

The problem is that, unlike the US and Colombian facilities, Ecuador has a serious deficit of specialized infrastructure for this. In all the country they only have 27 warehouses to store the cocaine until it is taken to ovens where it is incinerated and treated from an environmental point of view. The problem is that they don’t do it fast enough and, therefore, they have had to use their ingenuity.

The encapsulation method

With the help of UNODC itself, a team of engineers has designed a treatment system that converts cocaine into concrete suitable for construction. The process, called encapsulation, is simple, fast and cheap.

“Our approach was that we took this process (encapsulation) and did it big, perhaps out of desperation to destroy the drugs,” he admitted. Edmund MeraUndersecretary of Drug Control of the Ministry of the Interior of Ecuador, in statements to Reuters.

The process is relatively simple. The cocaine is taken to a classified location treatment plant, to avoid potential incidents, where blocks of cocaine are pulverized together with other materials (including medicines) together with cement, sand and water to make concrete.

Compared to the 12 hours it takes to incinerate a ton of cocaine, with encapsulation it only takes 3 hours. In this way, in a day at full capacity 10 tons of cocaine can be recycled. In addition, due to the concrete manufacturing process itself, cocaine cannot be recovered or seep into the ground.

It is a perfect recycling method and it is already paying off… although, for the moment, there are still some 83 tons left, waiting to be encapsulated soon.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Posts

Read More
More