Mangrove forest thrives around what was once Latin America’s largest landfill

By MARIO LOBÃO and DIANE JEANTET
Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — It was once Latin America’s largest landfill. Now, a decade after Rio de Janeiro closed it down and redoubled efforts to recover the surrounding expanse of highly polluted swamp, crabs, snails, fish and birds are once again populating the mangrove forest. Between the landfill’s inauguration in 1968 and 1996, some 80 million tons of garbage were dumped in the area. It polluted the 148 square miles Guanabara Bay and surrounding rivers with trash and runoff. Today, the city’s garbage collection agency shepherding the project has successfully recovered some 60 hectares, an area six times bigger than what they started with in the late 1990s.