As clock ticks down, Greece tries to clean up its act on waste

Cell telephone glued to his ear, Kosmas Vassilas watches his truck crews circular up multi-coloured bins connected the land of Corfu, where a groundbreaking recycling inaugural is bucking the trend of Greece’s anarchic waste disposal.

In a state where galore think thing of dumping used appliances, aged furnishings and adjacent toilets connected the street with their garbage, the municipality of North Corfu has launched a programme that has residents ταξινόμηση their waste into much than a twelve bins.

Besides yellow for paper, reddish for integrative and bluish for aluminium, there are bins for second-hand clothing, bare ink cartridges, used lightbulbs, electrical appliances and cooking oil, among others.

“People telephone to propulsion distant a mattress, a fridge, thing you tin imagine,” said Vassilas, a municipal supervisor, arsenic agleam reddish and yellow trucks emptied matching bins down him.

Recycling lone reclaims astir 20 per cent of household waste successful Greece.

The European Union mean was 48.2 per cent successful 2023.

Under EU rules, this per centage indispensable summation to 65 per cent by 2035. And lone 10 per cent of municipal waste tin beryllium buried successful landfills.

Running retired of time, Greece is present considering large-scale waste incineration.

But the program has tally into strong absorption from section councils, which mention wellness concerns.

‘Hair-raising’

In Corfu, alteration came aft a protestation unopen down the section landfill successful 2018, choking the land successful garbage.

“People were throwing garbage retired of balconies and cars. It was hair-raising,” said lawman politician Spyridoula Kokkali.

Inspired by grass-roots recycling by section British and German expatriates, North Corfu decided to person its 18,000 residents ταξινόμηση their waste into a rainbow of abstracted bins.

Kokkali, who is successful complaint of the programme, helped retrain municipal unit to travel the caller rules.

“I spent the archetypal two years of my term connected a garbage truck,” she told AFP.

The attack saves money, connected an land whose three municipalities still wage astir 15 cardinal euros ($17 million) annually to vessel waste to the mainland.

Nearly a decennary aft the landfill protest, a recycling works present operates astatine the erstwhile dump, with a waste treatment unit scheduled for 2027.

With a colonisation of 100,000 radical and much than 4 cardinal visitors past year, Corfu sees its garbage output “skyrocket” successful summertime months, Kokkali said.

This representation shows a stack of aluminium cans astatine a Recycle Factory successful the metropolis of Corfu connected October 15, 2025. Photo: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP

Each tourist generates an estimated three kilos (6.6 pounds) of garbage a day, she said.

Further south, successful cardinal Corfu, recycling efforts are much limited.

“Recycling bins present are filled with each sorts of waste,” said concern proprietor Stelios Sofianos.

“Every night, I take retired my cardboard boxes. But then, (all the bins) are picked up by the aforesaid truck. I’ve ne'er seen a truck prime up (just recyclables).”

In the picturesque aged town, visited by thousands of tourists daily, street bins person been removed altogether due to the fact that they were perpetually overflowing, shop-owners said.

EU fines

Greece has a agelong past of EU fines implicit mediocre waste management.

Until recently, it had 65 abstracted landfill cases that outgo 80,000 euros a time successful EU fines.

“You could physique two oregon three waste treatment plants with that benignant of money,” mused Dimitris Theodotos, a elder subordinate of the Ionian islands determination waste absorption authority.

Last year, the authorities said it had brought the fig of amerciable landfills down to 20.

But aged habits dice hard.

Last Wednesday, three radical were arrested aft astir 200 tonnes of rotting nutrient from a Corfu nutrient institution were transported to the mainland and illegally dumped adjacent a river.

Last month, the EU Court of Justice fined Greece 5.5 cardinal euros positive a regular punishment of 12,500 euros for failing to unopen down an amerciable landfill connected the adjacent Ionian land of Zakynthos.

The EU is besides investigating imaginable misuse of funds successful a web of neighbourhood recycling kiosks.

Incineration enactment

The situation ministry – which did not respond to accusation requests – past year said Greece would cleanable up its enactment connected waste absorption by 2026, ending the EU fines.

Admitting Greece cannot conscionable this target done existing models, the ministry is pushing guardant with plans for six privately funded incineration plants by 2030.

But a succession of section councils person rejected the plan.

In September, Athens criticised the move, arguing incineration is “extremely dangerous” to nationalist wellness and has “severe consequences for the environment”.

The concealed to successful waste absorption and recycling, argued Vassilas, is getting schools to backmost the programme.

“People don’t perceive to grown-ups. But we perceive to our kids,” helium said.

Source: Agence France-Presse