Photo: Residents have maintained a permanent blockade at the entrance of the landfill since March 21, 2024. PBI-Mexico accompanied the People’s Front highway blockade on that day two years ago.
The Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project has shared the news of an important win:
“For more than two years, the Cholultec peoples have fought for the closure of the sanitary landfill in San Pedro Cholula, Puebla.
The landfill, which received garbage from all over the region and even from neighboring states, was built on aquifers. Leachate from the landfill was contaminating the local water supply and the fields of surrounding farmers.
Peace Brigades International has accompanied the People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water (FPDTA), which has worked with like-minded groups such as the Union of Peoples Against the Landfill, to stop the operation of the landfill and draw attention to this environmental crisis.
For more than two years, the Union of Peoples Against the Landfill and the People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water have maintained a constant sit-in to monitor the landfill and ensure that no more garbage enters.
During that time, they have endured threats, acts of intimidation and criminalization. Despite all this, they have persisted in their resistance and on March 25, 2026, they won an important victory.
In a meeting with the company that owns the landfill and with various levels of government, a series of agreements were signed. The company and the government definitively agreed to desist from any attempt to reopen the landfill and agreed on a closure plan to stop leachate seepage into the local water supply.
The fight will not end until the company and the government comply with their agreements, removing all machinery from the landfill and completing the environmental restoration plan. However, the agreements signed on March 25 are an important victory, the result of two years of courageous non-violent struggle.”
PBI-Canada extends its congratulations
PBI-Canada welcomes the news about this important win on March 25.
The previous month we spent four days with the People’s Front and PBI-Mexico, including a visit to the encampment in San Pedro Cholula on February 21.
Photo: PBI-Canada coordinator Brent Patterson looks at a field adjacent to the garbage dump where the community would be lost to an expansion of the landfill.
Photo: “Demonstration. Out landfill! We demand total cancellation and abandonment plan.”
Angulo7 notes: “The agreement of March 31 … to desist from the expansion of the Cholula landfill on the adjacent land will be followed up. Another of the agreements reached … is that they will carry out an inspection in the coming days to review the leachate leaks after the closure of the Cholula landfill.”
We welcome the news that on April 9, El Sol de Puebla reported: “15 days after the signing of the agreement for the remediation of the property where the intermunicipal landfill of Cholula is located, on April 9, work began by the company Pro-Faj, to carry out the definitive closure of this space.”
We will be paying attention to the follow-up table that is scheduled to be held on Tuesday May 12 at 11:00 am.
Accompaniment
Peace Brigades International has accompanied the Peoples’ Front in Defence of Land and Water – Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala since early 2020.
