It's not about the people, it's about the trash they can't get rid of. It was in the news.
According to a study commissioned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and conducted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Puerto Rico could run out of landfill space in 2-4 years. This long-identified capacity issue has been exacerbated by tonnes of debris left behind by two back-to-back hurricanes that devastated the region in 2017.
https://www.ecorichenv.com/article/puer ... l-problemsEvery person in the region generates an average of 5.6 pounds of trash a day, according to a 2019 report card on Puerto Rico’s infrastructure by the American Society of Civil Engineers. That compares with 4.4 pounds elsewhere in the United States.
Because Puerto Rico is a cluster of islands, the trash has nowhere to go, says Carl Soderberg, executive director of the Puerto Rico chapter of the Inter-American Association of Sanitary Engineering and Environmental Sciences.
“We’re one step away from the brink,” he says.
https://globalpressjournal.com/americas ... ico-brink/