Rancagua is the largest city in the Region of O’Higgins. Municipal waste from the entire Region as well as from industrial and agricultural sources are managed at the engineered landfill (Relleno Sanitario La Yesca) located at Requinoa, which is a municipality adjacent to Rancagua. The site is owned by the municipality of Rancagua, but all operations at the landfill are managed by Veolia. The site receives about 725 tonnes per day or waste.
Site operations commenced in 1997 and the current contract with Veolia is until 2014, which is likely to be extended. In January 2018, our programme engaged a Canadian firm to undertake field studies at La Yesca to determine fugitive emissions of landfill gas and by utilizing historic data on waste quantities deposited, modeling is underway to estimate potential landfill gas availability. Based on the results, our programme will work with the municipality of Rancagua to implement landfill gas to energy projects. In addition, our programme is also in discussions with a Canadian firm that has constructed an anaerobic digester to manage agro-industrial waste to explore opportunities to include municipal source-separated organics in the digester.
