Export of sludge to be costly
The transfer of 60,000 tons of partially treated sewage from Greece to Germany, which has the appropriate facilities to process the sludge, is unlikely to cost less than 8.5 million euros, the Athens Water Supply and Sewage Company (EYDAP) said yesterday after receiving offers from four firms bidding for the job. This figure is three times the size of offers made last year by firms proposing the drying or burial of the sludge, according to EYDAP officials who said they currently had no other alternatives. The most attractive of the four offers would cost EYDAP 142.85 euros per ton of sludge, compared to the 100-euro-per-ton limit they had set. Also, the 60,000-ton mound accounts for just under a third of a sludge mountain sitting at the waste processing plant on Psyttaleia, an islet off Piraeus. It was unclear whether the same rate would be applied to the export of the rest of the sludge to Germany, which has been favored by the bidding firms as a destination for the muck. Meanwhile, workers at Attica’s only landfill in Ano Liosia and the president of the Union of Municipal Authorities in Attica (ESDKNA) Giorgos Mastorakos threatened to close down the overburdened dump in a month if the construction of an alternative site has not been started by then. «The outlook is already bleak but the state must find solutions or the (Ano Liosia) dump will never be decongested,» Mastorakos said. Residents’ protests have obstructed plans to build an alternative landfill at Fyli, not far from the Ano Liosia site. The Council of State is due to rule on a prosecutor’s proposal against plans to build dumps at Fyli and Keratea. The same prosecutor has recommended the construction of a landfill at Grammatiko but residents oppose the move.
