Divers find 15.7-hectare waste tip in sea off Andros
Volunteer divers from Aegean Rebreath, in cooperation with the Hellenic Center for Marine Research, have discovered waste mounds in the sea off the island of Andros with a perimeter of more than 100 meters. Specifically, the underwater landfill in Andros reaches 15.7 hectares. The divers also reveal there was direct dumping of large quantities of rubbish into the sea, at a distance from the coast, sometime after the landfill at Stavropeda collapsed into the sea in February 2011 after heavy rain.
It was an inevitable end for the site where all the island’s garbage had been illegally buried or burned since the 1970s. In the following weeks, Andros’ garbage was found all around the Aegean.
The incident was forgotten, until 2019. Volunteer divers from the Aegean Rebreath organization accidentally discovered the deposits of the sunken landfill. The mapping of the landfill was completed a few days ago.
