The incessant construction of new housing across the Vega Baja over the last three decades, combined with the total lack of facilities to dispose of the waste produced in the area, has inevitably led to conflicts with residents now that EU Directives and national laws require the situation to be remedied.
Over a thousand people marched in protest through Los Montesinos yesterday evening against the council’s recent decision to cede land for an organic waste treatment plant.
The demonstration was organised by a group set up specifically to oppose these plans, the ‘Plataforma NO A La Planta de Basura Orgánica’, which insists they are non-political and not climate change deniers.
Their principal arguments are, firstly, that it will generate ‘unpleasant and persistent odours’ which will affect all residents, since they ‘will no longer have our clean air and relaxing streets’.
The importance of clean air is even enshrined in the town’s tourism slogan, ‘sea breezes, aromas of orange blossom’, they point out.
They also note that the facility will generate methane, which not only has a very serious impact on climate change, they claim it would also be dangerous for their health.
The residents also fear that the plant will put businesses off setting up in the industrial estate, thus preventing sustainable economic growth and potentially devaluing the land and real estate.
Moreover, the group insists that the financial compensation the town hall would receive in return for housing this infrastructure (€22,000 per year and €4 per tonne up to its capacity of 4,408 tonnes per year) is completely insufficient for the ‘irreversible damage that it will inflict to our lovely town’.
“This investment will not bring the prosperity that we need, but rather it will endanger the future of Los Montesinos,” they say.
The 3,500 square metre site is located in the Levante II Industrial Estate, where there are bars, a hotel, an evangelical church, shops, petrol stations, etc.
This plot is also less than a kilometre from the town and La Herrada urbanisation, 200 metres from some isolated houses and 600m from the Lagunas de La Mata and Torrevieja natural park.
The protesters are also aggrieved by the lack of information and advance notice, since the council meeting it was approved at on July 10 was called with less than 24 hours’ notice and they only found out through the press, not the town hall.
An informative meeting for residents was eventually held but not until the eve of the protest.
The only information available about the project was on the Vega Baja waste management consortium website, which did not refer to the specific site, a plot of land that was originally destined for recreational/sporting use and then for a recycling depot – a proposal that they actually had approved of.
As such, they argue that they cannot know if this site is the most suitable location until the consortium has revised its organic waste plan for the whole Vega Baja.
Finally, they are concerned that there is no guarantee that the plant will not be expanded at a later date when the area generates more waste than its maximum capacity.
