Ecuador has decided to get rid of drug which is piled up in the Police collection centers, turning it into concrete platforms. The country hopes to transform 83 tons of cocaine in this material, which has already been used for specific purposes.

In 2021, the drugs seized doubled compared to the previous year, exceeding the 210 tons. In 2022 they were slightly reduced, but the amount of drugs confiscated exceeds the space available in the 27 police warehouses where drugs are kept before being destroyed.

Using the so-called encapsulation method, with the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Ecuador pulverizes blocks of seized cocaine in industrial machines with other effluents at a waste disposal plant before mixing the resulting fine powder with cement, sand and water to create concrete pads.

Hundreds of hydrochloride blocks cocaine and coca paste seized from across Ecuador arrive each week at a waste treatment plant on the outskirts of the capital Quito to be broken down along with glass, expired medicines and even oil waste. The powder is then mixed with other materials to produce concrete to be used in construction.

Ecuadorian authorities have used this process to fill a hole 15 meters deep. Once this hole is filled with the cocaine concrete, another will be filled and the process repeated. There are currently no plans to use the encapsulated cocaine for other infrastructure projects.

Until now, some 350 tons of ground cocaine and coca paste -a precursor of cocaine- seized between 2021 and 2022, according to plant technicians.