Ecuador has become one of the countries in the world that confiscates the most drugs. Specifically, it ranks third. In the last two years alone, more than 400 tons of drugs have been seized, according to the latest World Drug Report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Under the presidency of Guillermo Lasso, the Andean country has redoubled its efforts to fight drug trafficking that uses the country as a starting point to send merchandise to the United States and Europe. The huge amounts of cocaine confiscated is a headache for the authorities. They have had storage problems for a long time. For this reason they have decided to be ingenious in order to 'reuse' the substance: turn it into concrete.
To use it in construction materials, cocaine goes through a process in which it is crushed and mixed with other discarded materials, such as expired drugs or garbage. Hundreds of blocks of seized drugs arrive weekly at a waste treatment plant in the country - the place has not been specified - to be processed and mixed with glass, medical waste and oil.
A pulverizing machine turns everything into powder, which is then mixed with cement, sand, and water to produce concrete. The process, after the consequent setting and decanting of the crushed material, turns the cocaine into an impenetrable material and does not allow the drug to leak into the ground or be recovered.
UNODC supports this "potting" method. Edmundo Mera, Ecuador's undersecretary for drug control, told the Reuters agency that they took that process and did it "in a big way" out of "desperation to destroy drugs."
As detailed by the authorities, this method is four times faster than incinerating it, the traditional way of destroying drugs. It is that to burn a ton of cocaine a period of 12 hours is required.
The technicians of the plant set up on the outskirts of Quito have already processed more than 350 tons of the drug, which has become an essential input for the process. The concrete is intended for construction and paving. "This procedure is cheaper, takes less time and does not affect the environment," Pablo Ramírez, director of Ecuador's Anti-Drug Investigation, told Reuters.
