Gov't admits over 900 companies still polluting Riachuelo

Secretary of Environment Juan José Mussi once again repeated on Wednesday that “it would be great to be able to say that the Riachuelo river is clean and free of toxic dumping by July 9, 2016.”

Mussi said on a radio interview that “removing the ‘La Saladita’ market, with its 12,000 stands bordering the river, is the most important step taken in the last few days” towards a cleaner river basin.

Regarding the industries located along the side of the Riachuelo, the secretary indicated that “they are all registered and 11,000 of them are ready to be visited by Government inspectors.”

He assured that 963 of them are currently polluting, but explained that “over 30 percent of them are currently applying industrial reconversion programmes, while 300 others are drafting them as we speak.”

Mussi already said that the industries polluting the Riachuelo the most are meat processing plants, and tanneries, some of them already shut down by the Government.