Trash piles up on streets of Corfu as residents block landfill

Shopkeepers and tourism professionals on the Ionian island of Corfu are despairing over the piles of trash that are mounting in the main town but also around key monuments and sites after a major landfill was closed down by protesting residents two weeks ago.

Shopkeepers have been spraying the mounting heaps of rubbish with disinfectant and covering them in plastic sheets to contain the odor of tons of trash rotting in the summer heat.

Residents of Temploni, where the landfill is located, are demanding that local authorities either rehabilitate the landfill so that it meets European Union standards or relocate it.

Responding to their action, Corfu Mayor Costas Nikolouzos told Kathimerini on Monday that he understands their frustration. “The residents are right,” he said. “But if they persist and condemn the island to 3,000 tons of garbage on the streets, then they lose the high ground.”