Waste management plans to be reviewed, ministry official says

The Environment Ministry aims to review plans for waste management in Attica and at the national level, Kathimerini understands, though certain critical projects – such as the extension of the capital’s main landfill – are to continue as scheduled.

The new plans will be drafted on the basis of proposals by the Attica regional council, which is expected to convene in due course.

According to Manolis Grafakos, a general secretary at the Environment Ministry, waste management in Attica “is in a worse state than it was in 2014,” he said, referring to the year that leftist SYRIZA’s Rena Dourou assumed the post of Attica governor. (Conservative New Democracy’s Giorgos Patoulis took over after this year’s local authority elections.)

Dourou handed over a plan “that had the right goals but failed to achieve them,” Grafakos said.

The plan to extend the capital’s main landfill in Fyli, northwestern Athens, which has been enlarged several times, is to proceed as it is once again near saturation.

However, the details of its extension will be finalized by the new regional council, Grafakos said. This will be followed by the drafting of a broader plan for waste management on the national level, he said.

The Peloponnese of is particular concern as nearly half of the country’s illegal landfills are in the region.