Riot police deployed as Corfu's rubbish nightmare escalates

The rubbish situation on Corfu escalated over the weekend after riot police were deployed to control protests against an illegal landfill site on the south of the Greek island, not far from the party resort of Kavos.

For months now, foul-smelling bins have been overflowing onto the streets as a result of the mountainous landfill site of Temploni in the north of the island passing full capacity.

The proposed solution, a landfill south in Lefkimmi declared illegal by the EU, has stirred tensions between locals and government officials leading to protests and the presence of riot police just minutes from the popular holiday town of Kavos.

“Driving into Kavos late at night we saw a police diversion, which was really scary, and our taxi driver didn’t know where he was going. He said we had to take another route into Kavos because the army were here. It’s definitely off-putting and not a relaxing start to the holiday,” said Chloe Harrison, 19, a visitor from Leeds.

The removal of 80,000 tonnes of waste from Temploni to Lefkimmi is being enforced by the Greek government, in spite of the landfill being declared illegal by the EU and unsafe by Greece’s Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration. “I am enforced to use the landfill because I have no other legal place to put the garbage,” said Corfu Mayor Kostas Nikolouzos.

Yiannis Pandis, secretary of the Alefkimmo community committee resisting the landfill, said: “It’s too close to our dwellings, holiday apartments and to the four-star Mayor Capo di Corfu resort hotel. It should be 1,500m away from dwellings, not 500m away.”

Water has been found to run beneath this site, connecting 22 wells used by local residents as well as the Lefkimmi and Sotira rivers. “The entire area is at risk of being polluted and our water poisoned. This is water that tourists will use to wash with, brush their teeth with and eventually, as it runs into the sea, swim in,” said Pandis.

“The government took money from the EU for proper waste infrastructure on Corfu to be built, failed to use it for this purpose and now have to prove that waste is being dealt with in order to avoid huge fines. They are building an illegal landfill putting locals and our tourists at risk because they’ve lined their pockets and need to show that the money has gone somewhere. We can’t see where the money has gone.”

The opposition to the Lefkimmi site has been met with austere measures from the government, which has sent riot police to line the main road leading to the port of Lefkimmi and town of Kavos. The police have been accused of using tear gas, rubber bullets and beating protesters.

“It’s the first time in 32 years that I really don’t want to live here anymore and friends are now scared to visit,” said British ex-pat Alison Pandi, wife of Yiannis.

“Our daughter was taken from outside of our home by undercover police and kept in a cell overnight, alone and in the dark for no reason other than that she is Yiannis’s daughter. They insisted we go and see her locked up in a cell, so I know the motive behind it was to threaten us.”

A Belgian tourist, Leroy Dye, said: “We’re used to this in Belgium because of the terrorist attacks that have happened but it’s so strange for this to be happening here.”

Evelyn Gousis, owner of the popular Scorers Bar in Kavos, said the police could scare away tourists.

“They are rude, they have called us ‘wh***s’ and other unspeakable things in order to terrorise the local community and provoke us so that they will have reason to use force to justify their presence here. Is this an environment we can safely welcome tourists into?” she said.  

A solution has been suggested to the local government by UK-based consultancy management CCP Global Energy Ltd, using Pyrolysis, a self-contained system in which plastics are converted into useful and sellable energy as well as fertilizer.

“Within 18 months, we can have this fully up and running and clearing a back-log of Corfu’s refuse and in the interim we can bring out a portable system and can process waste on-site,” said the company’s managing director, Colin Johnson.

They submitted a paper proposal in March 2016 but are yet to receive a positive response from MP Kostas Pavlidis or the Mayor Nikolouzos. It is now with the mayor, who said: “I’m willing to explore every option because I have to confess, I don’t totally agree with the national program on waste management. It doesn’t suit an island like Corfu.”

Nikolouzos could not confirm when the roadblock would end or when the riot police would leave. He can confirm that there are plans for recycling to begin this year on Corfu.

Earlier this month the travel association Abta said it had not had any negative feedback from holidaymakers on the island, while Thomas Cook and Tui said its guests had not been affected.

However, one Briton said that Corfu was like “trash island” and there was a “massive problem all over the island”, adding: “I can smell acrid smoke, trash is in every village”.

In 2015 Greek authorities were referred to the EU Court of Justice over its poor waste management on Corfu - the charge related to the landfill site at Temploni. A survey in 2014 counted 16 illegal landfill sites operating on Greek islands.

Telegraph Travel’s Corfu expert, Marc Dublin, said that the mountains of uncollected rubbish has been “an enduring blot on the landscape for several years now”.