Waste management needs national logistics strategy, not municipal dead ends
The inspections carried out on ferries have reignited the debate over waste transportation. The real issue, however, is not the occasional inspections but the absence of a national strategy that would ensure safer, more cost-effective, and better-organised waste transport, without shifting the cost onto local residents.
The recent social media post about inspections of ferries transporting Corfu's waste to mainland Greece has reignited interest in an issue that periodically returns to public debate. However, the fundamental question remains unchanged.
If the transport of tens of thousands of tonnes of waste to processing facilities has now become a permanent feature of the waste management system, and if, in the near future, this will be expanded to include transporting residual waste to waste-to-energy facilities, why is this critical link still not treated as part of a national strategy?
Greece needs an organised logistics network for municipal waste, with uniform standards, specialised transport equipment, safe operating procedures, economies of scale, and centralised coordination. It is unreasonable for each island or each Regional Waste Management Authority (FODSA) to search for its own solutions, negotiate transport contracts independently, and bear the cost of this fragmented approach.
Waste transportation is an integral part of the national waste management policy. It should therefore be financed through central government resources, complementing the operation of the country's major waste treatment facilities. At the very least, the cost could be shared among the FODSAs, but it should not be passed on to local authorities as though it were merely a municipal service to be funded through local charges. Municipalities do not design the national system; they are simply required to operate within it.
In Corfu, the problem is even more acute. Municipal waste collection fees have soared not only because of the enormous transportation costs, but also because local services and their private contractors continue to show significant shortcomings in organisation, productivity, and their ability to achieve more cost-effective solutions. As a result, the overall cost continues to rise and is ultimately divided among the residents who are required to pay.
This is not management. It is simply an accounting exercise that shifts the cost of failure onto residents' bills. And as long as the state continues to treat waste transportation as a local responsibility rather than as a critical component of a national logistics system, citizens will continue to pay excessive fees for a service that could be safer, more efficient, and far less expensive.
GIORGOS KATSAITIS
