The Rubbish Dump Of Europe

On the scale of rubbish ideas, the one by which Europe's rubbish will be shipped into Puerto Alcúdia for incineration at Son Reus in Palma is one of the more rubbish you are likely to come across. This, at any rate, is how the approval by the Council of Mallorca to permit the importing of combustible waste from other countries is being styled and is being styled, moreover, with a rare show of local political unity, Alcúdia's Partido Popular mayor having been on the phone to the environment councillor to tell her to forget the whole idea and politicians from parties to the left having waded in with their own objections.

The first question that came to mind when this was all first being announced was not to do with whether it was right or wrong to bring this rubbish to Mallorca but why on earth it was going to be shipped into Alcúdia. Palma has a ruddy great port that is much closer to Son Reus, so wouldn't it make more sense for the rubbish to be offloaded in Palma? Pere Malondra, leader of PSOE in Alcúdia, has implied that it would cause more of a fuss in Palma because there are that many more people to make a fuss. He may well be right. The feeling is that Alcúdia's being kicked around.

There again, Alcúdia is both an industrial and a passenger port, though there is a legitimate issue as to whether the industrial element should be expanded when Alcúdia already receives gas and coal for the butane plant and the power station and when it is also a port for the export of material (especially wood) for recycling on the mainland and which has a habit of being piled up and becoming an eyesore in August because mainland plants reduce operations on account of holidays, so causing a backlog (so to speak) in the shipping of the woody refuse.

The logistics of transporting the waste aside, the rhetoric has gone into overdrive. Mallorca will be the rubbish dump of Europe. It will be environmental and economic suicide. Less emotional has been Mayor Terrassa's observation that the waste doesn't fit with the tourism image of Alcúdia. Which is true, but equally nor do the rotting old power station (absurdly supposed to be partially preserved as it represents industrial heritage) and the coal trucks that shuttle between the port and the current power station.

As there seems to be no intention to import the waste during the summer, the tourism argument loses some strength. Malondra has asked, though, whether what is wanted is the promotion of tourism to tackle seasonality or the importing of waste. Which is a fair point, or would be if one could be convinced that something was genuinely being done to tackle the absence of tourism out of season.

There are, as is the norm with Mallorca's politicians, some pretty odd things being said about the waste import. María Salom, the president of the Council of Mallorca, has come out with a belter. She has observed that in Germany there are treatment plants which take waste from other countries, as would be the case at Son Reus, and that the Germans who come to Mallorca would know that this is perfectly normal. Erm, yes, María, German tourists and indeed tourists from other countries might know that it is normal to treat waste in their own countries but it doesn't follow that they would consider it normal as a backdrop to their holidays on what the Germans have long insisted on calling the "paradise island".

There is undoubtedly a disconnect between Mallorca, the paradise island, and Mallorca, a place with industry. It does seem incongruous that there should be an enormous and expensive waste-treatment plant on the paradise tourist island, but something has to be done with waste even on a paradise island.

It is the scale of the waste treatment, however, that goes to explain why Mallorca is about to become the recipient of some European rubbish. Tirme, the company which is owned by among others Endesa and which has the concession (a monopoly one) on waste treatment until 2041, has invested vast sums in incineration at Son Reus. This investment has placed its activities under the environmental-watchdog microscope. GOB, for example, has accused Tirme of concentrating on incineration instead of recycling. Friends Of The Earth say that its capacity for incineration exceeds the level of waste that is generated on Mallorca.

María Salom has pointed out that Tirme was given the go-ahead by the previous (non-PP) administration to invest some 300 million euros in new incineration plant, an investment, the environmentalists would argue, that was unnecessary. But having ploughed the investment in, Tirme needs its payback. According to Salom, Tirme has been seeking an increase of 50% in its charges for waste treatment. These charges filter down to the town halls and ultimately to taxpayers. An alternative - the only alternative, says Salom - is the import of waste and payments from other countries which will mean that Tirme doesn't have to impose its increase.

But is Salom entirely accurate in her reference to the previous administration? The person who she says gave final authorisation for work on the new incinerator was Marilena Tugores of Els Verds (the Greens), and she said so in an interview with the Mallorcadiario website on 8 September. Yet Tugores only assumed the role of environment councillor in February 2010. It may have fallen to the Greens to oversee the incinerator coming on-stream (purely because someone had to step in when all politicians from the discredited Unió Mallorquina were booted out of positions), but the Bloc, which includes the Greens, and PSOE's Francina Armengol, former president of the Council of Mallorca, have made it clear that it was the Matas PP government at the fag end of its administration in 2007 which had authorised the incinerator, the investment and the extension of Tirme's contract to 2041.

These contradictory versions only add to the political arguments that the importing of waste is engendering. In Alcúdia, the arguments are primarily to do with tourism, but they go very much wider and raise other questions, such as why did Tirme invest in new incineration facilities if they weren't really necessary.

The new plant is said to be one of the most advanced in Europe and the treatment of the waste will not, says the present environment councillor, Catalina Soler, smell or be dirty. However, ecologists argue that incineration, while it reduces the amount of waste, leaves contaminants that are harmful to humans, animals and vegetation. The Balearics association for licensed environmental scientists believes that the import should not be an option for an island with a "fragile ecosystem".

The import is, therefore, raising once more the whole issue of how Mallorca should deal with waste from whatever source. Tirme has invested in incineration, one imagines, as it believes that it is a cheaper option than recycling, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Tirme is right. Moreover, it removes waste, unlike landfill, and can generate some energy. But environmentalist groups like GOB would maintain that Tirme devotes far too little of its own energies on recycling, which is part of its obligations. By concentrating on incineration and making massive investment that was arguably unnecessary, it has required a means of getting a payback - the import of waste.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.