The Sisyphean struggle with rubbish
Tourism generates private profits, but shifts a significant part of its costs onto society. And it is the permanent residents who end up paying the price for a form of development that exceeds the area΄s capacity to cope.
The conundrum of Corfu’s rubbish problem brings to the surface a deeper imbalance: the profits generated by the intensive exploitation of the island are private, while a significant part of the cost is borne by society as a whole. Permanent residents are expected to foot the bill for keeping the island habitable, even as it generates wealth for others.
The tourism economy makes use of the landscape, public spaces, water, infrastructure and the labour of local people. It generates income, but also imposes costs. The more of its actual costs are shifted onto society, the more its profitability depends precisely on that transfer. Business results also reflect the benefit of expenses borne by others: paid for with money, through degraded services, and through the erosion of their everyday quality of life.
This is why invoking the principle of ‘cost recovery’, using the tools and assumptions of an era with fewer visitors, is not enough. A municipal budget can be balanced while the way its costs are distributed remains deeply unfair. The constant search for more money from the same residents leaves untouched the mechanism that shifts the burden onto them.
There is also the question of limits. When activity exceeds the area’s carrying capacity – that is, the capacity of its infrastructure, environment and society to withstand the pressure – there is a price to pay. Rubbish becomes the tangible manifestation of an obsession with ever-increasing growth. Even the fairest distribution of costs cannot create unlimited capacity.
This expansion is often supported even by those who receive the smallest share of the profits. Workers hope for one more day's wages; small business owners hope for one more customer. The need to make a living lends credibility to the promise that every increase in activity will benefit everyone. As a result, those who bear a disproportionate burden can become supporters of the very course of development that perpetuates it.
Life in Corfu cannot be treated as free raw material for generating profits.
GIORGOS KATSAITIS
