Piraeus hit by stench of garbage
Residents of Piraeus resorted yesterday to throwing diluted chlorine over mounting piles of rubbish in the streets as there seems to be no solution in sight for the area’s waste problems. Locals tried to disinfect the areas around trash dumpsters in a bid to lessen the stench from rotting garbage and to keep away pigeons. Some 1,250 tons of trash have built up as a result of a strike by municipal workers who claim they are owed a total of 2 million euros in overtime pay. Piraeus Mayor Panayiotis Fassoulas has said that the municipality does not have the money to pay the outstanding salaries. He blamed the previous mayor, Christos Agrapidis, for leaving the authority’s finances in a bad state. Fassoulas told worker representatives on Tuesday that he is waiting for the Interior Ministry to approve the municipality’s application for an 85-million-euro loan before he can pay their overtime. He invited the workers to accompany him to the ministry to find out when the loan will be issued but this did not satisfy the protesters.
