A deal to bury the first shipment of 20,000 tons of Italian rubbish in a Portuguese landfill site has run into trouble not only with horrified environmentalists but with Portugal’s Integrated Center for the Treatment of Industrial Waste (CITRI) which has quarantined the waste until it can be established exactly what it consists of.
The Portuguese Environment Agency decided that the first of many shipments was perfectly OK as the Italians said there was 'nothing hazardous in the rubbish' but CITRI wants to be sure that the Italians are not dumping toxic waste on Portugal’s doorstep.
"Only after confirmation of the characterisation of the residues by the laboratory and by the independent international entity, and once the acceptance criteria have been confirmed, quarantine will be lifted and the waste will be properly processed," stated CITRI today.
CITRI stated that the Italian operator obtained authorisation from both the Portuguese and Italian environmental authorities to send up to 20,000 tonnes of low risk and non-hazardous waste for landfill in the industrial area of Mitrena, in Setúbal.
But CITRI is being wary, mainly because the Italian waste industry is renowned for being controlled by the mafia. In addition to "ensuring strict compliance with all Community rules and requirements of Portuguese law in this type of operation," CITRI decided to implement an "additional mechanism of environmental control that is not mandatory, as part of the Environmental responsibility policy of the company."
CITRI has quarantined the first batch of 2,700 tonnes of waste and has contracted an independent company to carry out sample analysis.
The deal to take Italian rubbish was arranged by Portugal’s ports authority and allows for up to 60,000 tons of domestic rubbish to be imported and buried on Portuguese territory.
The problem the Italians have is a six million tonnes mountain of waste in the Naples region and no way locally of dealing with it. Several years’ worth of rubbish is attracting huge EU fines which makes it worthwhile for the Italians to pay to ship the rubbish to Portugal which seems willing to bury the problem.
