The saga of the illegal rubbish dump in the former quarry at Agia Triada, on the road from Kolymbari to Afrata, seems to be continuing. At the end of October we sent a letter to the mayor of Platanias, drawing his attention to the dump and requesting that he give priority to removing the environmental hazard which it represented. On the following day we received an acknowledgement from the Platanias Council, giving a case number and naming the official in charge. There was no further communication for some 6 weeks, during which time, no doubt, other citizens voiced their concern, some of them to the Haniotika Nea. On 6^th December the paper reported that it had had comments from readers about the dumping of potentially hazardous materials at the site, while the previous day it had caught fire and burned for five hours.

There were no reports of any attempts to put the fire out and it continued to smoulder for several days, at the end of which a series of rainstorms more or less extinguished it. However, the following week one or more smaller fires were lit to dispose of what remained of the rubbish, at the end of which bulldozers, presumably sent by the Municipality, were seen clearing the site, and by the beginning of this week it had been more or less restored to its pristine condition.

So far so good – it seemed that the Municipality or its contractors had chosen the easy way of disposing of the rubbish – albeit at the expense of creating an additional environmental hazard by burning it. Had things remained that way there would have been not too much cause for complaint, although the smell from the burning rubbish was enough to make driving up from Kolymbari an unpleasant experience. However, over the past few days, further rubbish has been deposited at the dump and on Friday it was set fire to, creating more hazardous smoke.

The whole story raises a number of questions, such as:
– Who initially deposited rubbish at the site?
– Who set fire to it, and at what point did the Municipality become involved?
– Since there seems to have been no attempt to close off the site, with the result that inevitably more rubbish will be dumped there, have the Municipality decided to merely let it happen, and periodically burn off the accumulated waste?
If the answer to the latter question is yes, it does not bode well for the future quality of life in the neighbourhood.

The cavalier attitude of Cretans to environmental hazards is well known. Local farmers will happily add plastic sacks and other items to their bonfires, seemingly oblivious to the toxic smoke produced. There is a site in the hills behind the Cadets’ Monument outside Kolymbari where plastic waste is routinely accumulated and burned off once a year, presumably also by the Municipality. At least it is far enough way from the road not to be a direct nuisance, but the overall effect on air quality cannot be good.

Mysterious smells on Akrotiri
Residents near the village of Horafakia on Akrotiri have been subject to a similar kind of nuisance, apparently emanating from a waste treatment plant, as was reported in Monday’s Haniotika Nea:

Anxiety over the the consequences for their health and the environment and exasperation with the attitude of the local authorities have driven residents of Akrotiri to demonstrate last Saturday outside the waste treatment plant near the village of Horafakia, because of strong smells caused by the burning of rubbish which have been noticed since last October.

Local residents, both Greek and foreigners, want an investigation to establish whether all the legal procedures for waste management are being observed, and to carry out measurements to see if toxic substances are ending up in the atmosphere and the earth from the burning of rubbish. In fact 150 signatures have already been collected to seek the public prosecutor’s intervention.

As they told the Haniotika Nea, they also wonder how the handling of waste is permitted next to agricultural holdings and very near to areas with intensive touristic development. They are also complaining about the Municipality and the Regional Unit of Chania, who although they have been informed say that it is not their responsibility.

The president of the Stavros Environmental Protection Association Malika Tzamaridaki told the paper that the problem started two months ago, when a fire broke out at the waste management centre. It was put out by the Fire Service but the smell has persisted. “We can’t go out in the evening because of the strong chemical smell. If we carry on breathing that smell we’ll get cancer,” she said, emphasising that there has been no official information from the authorities as to how people in the area can protect their health.

Panagiotis Alevantis, a physicist and official of the European Commission’s Representation in Greece, pointed out that the Fire Service had come to put out the fire three times, without getting rid of the smell. He questioned whether all the legal procedures and all those laid down in the relevant permits were being observed. “The affair needs to be put under the microscope by the authorities, because if the authorities are not doing their job properly then it is they who are responsible and not the company,” he said. His wife Katerina added that the local inhabitants feel that they are being held hostage in their own homes, since they cannot go out or open their windows because of the “unbearable smell”.

What looks like a pattern seems to be emerging here. Waste is deposited at legal or illegal sites, and municipalities or their contractors, faced with the problem of its accumulation, set fire to it causing a double environmental hazard. In the case of the Agia Triada, the fact that the fire burned for 5 hours with no apparent attempt to extinguish it clearly suggests that the fire was deliberately set, or that a decision was taken to allow it to burn.

Knowing the local habit of following the path of least resistance when disposing of waste, it is difficult to see how this can be resolved. It clearly needs better facilities for waste management, better public information and strict enforcement of penalties for illegal dumping and waste treatment – all of which is a long-term process. At present it does not look as though local government is giving it priority or even taking the first steps in establishing such a policy. This is doubly unfortunate when such events happen close to inhabited or agricultural areas, or those with intensive touristic activity.