Corfu waste management: meeting at the Ministry of Interior today at 2pm

Ministers and officials from the Ministries of the Interior and the Environment will be arriving at the meeting from Tripoli fresh from the regional conference there. However, the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle could contain some surprises which may affect the Corfu problem.

Despite the town council’s decision that membership of the representative committee to negotiate the removal of the waste bales at Temploni landfill out of Corfu should be as wide as possible, it seems that there will be much fewer members than originally planned.

Babis Haralambos was the first to state that he wouldn’t participate along with the two Temploni organizations. The Lefkimmi Cultural Society then decided not to participate after all, although the other Lefkimmi organization, Residents against the South Corfu Landfill, will take part.

Yiannis Trepeklis was also against it, telling the council that the information they had originally been given was that the waste could be accepted by Kozani.

Meropi Ydraiou has not yet said whether she will participate, citing the council’s poor handling of the matter. She reiterated that her proposal had not been only that the waste should be removed elsewhere but that there should also be an effort to claim substantial funding for a permanent solution to the problem. She expressed her concern that decisions had already been taken and that she herself had no intention of playing the role of an ‘extra’.

The two Corfu MPs, Fotini Vaki and Kostas Pavlidis, are also expected to take part in the representative committee.

Meanwhile, piles of rubbish are already beginning to accumulate (see photo) at the waste transfer plant at the Emporiko Kentro near the biological treatment plant as the entrance to Temploni has been blockaded since Saturday morning.