"Building Buildings with Cocaine?"... Ecuador's Drug Recycling Method

'Encapsulation' Technology Mixed with Cement and Others
More Economical and Environmentally Friendly than Incineration

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seung-woo] Ecuador has decided to actively adopt a technology that recycles cocaine, a representative drug, as a building material. This is the world's first case of a government-level implementation.

According to a Reuters report on the 17th (local time) and data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Ecuadorian government is conducting a project to reprocess cocaine seized in the country by mixing it with construction materials.

Although Ecuador does not have large-scale drug production areas like Colombia, its western port city on the Pacific coast is used as a major transit point for drug smuggling to the United States and Europe.

The common method for disposing of seized cocaine is incineration. This method requires special incinerators to prevent exhaust gas emissions and remove residual substances, and it takes up to two weeks to incinerate 10 tons of cocaine. Moreover, before incineration, the cocaine is generally stored in warehouses, and if the processing time is delayed, management costs increase.

However, by using a so-called 'encapsulation' technology that mixes cocaine with cement and other materials in a special ratio to make building materials, it is known that the same amount can be safely disposed of within one day.

Cocaine blocks produced through encapsulation process.
Photo by Reuters Yonhap News

Encapsulation is a technology that completely crushes cocaine into fine granules (powder) and mixes it with cement, water, chemical accelerators, and other substances to create a sticky slurry. This mixture is molded into concrete slabs and, after drying for several hours, hardens completely and becomes solid.

Edmundo Mera, Deputy Minister of Drug Control at the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Interior, stated, "Due to the chemical reactions during the hardening process, a stable and impermeable network structure is formed, making it impossible to extract cocaine again from the final solid block."

UNODC, in a December report last year about encapsulation, described it as a "fast, economical, and environmentally friendly disposal method" and said it is cooperating with Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru to transfer the technology for safe cocaine disposal through encapsulation.

According to Reuters, Ecuadorian government authorities have processed about 350 tons of cocaine through the encapsulation process so far, and the resulting mixture is being used in the construction of a factory warehouse building.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.