Row breaks out over plan to move Tripoli trash to Attica
Members of EDSNA, the local government association responsible for waste management, are to hold an emergency meeting on Friday to decide what to do with 4,000 tons of waste that has accumulated in the central city of Tripoli after Attica’s Regional Governor Rena Dourou objected to plans to move the trash to the capital’s main landfill at Fyli, northwestern Attica.
General secretaries of the Attica and Peloponnese regional authorities deemed that the trash in Tripoli, which has been accumulating since the closure of the city’s illegal landfill in early 2013, should be moved to the Fyli site. The Municipality of Tripoli was declared as being in a state of emergency earlier this month.
Dourou on Thursday described as “a coup-like move” the decision by the general secretaries, who were appointed by the previous government, to transfer the trash to Fyli. The decision “is in blatant opposition” to the aim of authorities to change the established practice of sending the bulk of household waste to the Fyli landfill which is already close to saturation, Dourou said. Last month, the European Court of Justice imposed a 10-million-euro fine on Greece for failing to close down dozens of illegal landfills and comply with European waste management directives, and ordered the country to pay an additional 14.5 million euros for every six months that the illegal dumps remain operative.
