By Antonis Karkayiannis

About half the population of Greece lives in Attica, which is also where over half of every kind of activity, including total building volume, is to be found.

There are many reasons for this phenomenon, but we will not go into them here so as not to diverge from the matter at hand: garbage. Suffice it to say that Attica is an enduring example of anarchic development and the violent disturbance of any kind of equilibrium between man and his natural environment, but also between people themselves.

The most worrying factor, however, remains the strong tendency toward those high concentrations of people, activities and building volume in this one region.

From one point of view, the major roadworks in recent years (Attiki Odos, Western Hymettus ring road, Kifissou Avenue) have accelerated this concentration. There are many who forecast that this area saturation will cancel out the benefits of these projects.

Of particular concern is the situation in northeastern Attica (which, as is shown below, is linked to the garbage problem), but also the Mesogeia plain and the southern coast.

In other words, Attica has reached saturation point.

As a result, thousands of tons of garbage are produced on a daily basis which it is difficult, if not impossible, to deal with. Until now, the central waste management site (XYTA) has been situated in Liosia, which has been full to overflowing for some years.

The previous PASOK governments would not or could not plan a waste management system on a national scale (let us leave aside the suspicion that they gave in to the demands of entangled interests) or look for sites outside Attica to process the waste, or even apply other methods of waste management that have been found successful in other countries. They persisted in looking for a site within Attica to establish a huge XYTA, including in northeastern Attica, one of the few remaining green areas in the entire region.

Each municipality is trying to shift its garbage problem to another district. It used to be that every municipality, either on their own or in cooperation with their neighbors, had to suggest ways to process its waste.

If the state had stuck to this principle, it would have avoided the current disputes between municipalities. Responsibility for an increasingly enormous volume of trash would have been parceled out and other methods of collecting, sorting and processing the waste would have been found. It is a principle that would have applied equally to all and no one would be saying, «Why us and not the others?»

Another solution would have been to find a site for a XYTA outside Attica. In any case, this form of waste management is used in countries and regions where there are large uninhabited areas.

Here, the state at first did exactly the opposite. It chose a site within Attica - specifically in northwestern Attica, where there is a lack of open space - to set up the largest XYTA in Greece.

With Law 3164 of 2003, the site of «Mavro Vouno» in the community of Varnava was chosen for a huge XYTA. The absurdity of the situation is that as long ago as 1984, this area had been set aside for reforestation. In fact, pine shoots had already begun to re-emerge on the site of what had been a forest destroyed by fire, and it was clear that in a few years time, the forest would have re-established itself.

The choice of the site was made on the basis of a makeshift environmental study. For that reason, among others, local residents had recourse to the Council of State, where the case is still pending; according to the law, no XYTA can be established on the site until the Council has issued its ruling.

There are dozens of other reasons why the site is unsuitable. For example, there is no proper road access for the hundreds of heavy vehicles that would be arriving. Then there is the fact that the site is just 2 kilometers from the Marathon dam (which supplies Athens with water) so there is a real danger of the groundwater being polluted by toxic waste.

The whole of Attica, which despite the destruction wreaked upon it still bears traces of its old beauty, is unsuitable as a waste site. If the state has its own reasons to persist with the XYTA method, then it should abolish the 2003 law and seek a site outside Attica.

There have been several suggestions regarding the region of Ritsona, where railway rolling stock can be used to transport waste. Nevertheless, the choice of the most appropriate site needs careful study by the state authorities, but without question the most unsuitable place is the densely populated region of Attica.