Orikum is "invaded" by urban waste, every year 6500 tons of garbage are thrown near the streams

2024-09-09 15:21:00, Denoncim Afize Nelaj

Orikum is "invaded" by urban waste, every year 6500 tons of garbage

The city of Orikum, located in the south of the bay of Vlora, is one of the country's tourist destinations. The geographical position of Orikum, which is washed by two seas, the Ionian and the Adriatic, the climatic and land conditions offer many natural beauties and opportunities for sustainable marine and mountain development. Despite this, the inhabitants of this city live right next to a huge gangrene of garbage at its entrance.

The critical situation stems from the time when Orikum was a municipality and today, after 20 years, its entrance serves as a collection point for 130 thousand tons of waste.

"I am a resident of this area and I walk this road every day. Every time I pass I have to close the windows of the car because the heavy smell of garbage is so strong. It's a shame that we keep ourselves as a tourist destination and wait for people with this pile of garbage." - says Veli Gjipalaj, a resident of Orikum.

We are located near the roundabout where the "Bypass" road of the city of Vlora joins the administrative unit of Orikum. The small coastal town located at the southern end of the bay of Vlora is one of the tourist destinations of the Albanian Riviera for tourists. But even though it is a commercialized place for tourism, if tourists or citizens cross the serpentine road of the "Bypass", the first thing they will face as soon as they approach Orikum, is a large area surrounded by plastic. The latter, located on the left side of the road, is not high enough to cover the endless piles of garbage.

The landfill is located in the southeast of the city of Orikum, at a distance of about 200 m from the nearest neighborhood, near the Vlorë-Saranda national road (70 m), on the bank of the Dukat river and 500 m from the Adriatic sea.

"It's been 17 years since I left Orikum, when I come back, I come as a 'boy of the area', but also as a tourist. I don't feel good that if I'm accompanied by foreign friends, I have to explain to you that our area is not only that pile of garbage at the entrance, but there are other better things", says a 40-year-old man. who has come to spend the holidays in Vlora.

Residents of Orikum, as well as the surrounding villages, live near this collection point, where waste has been deposited for almost 20 years. About 6,500 tons of waste are dumped every year in this place, which is located very close to the Dukat river and the homes or businesses of the area's residents.

"This landfill area is 120 meters long x 40 meters wide, it reaches 4800m2. The amount of waste in the landfill in the 15 years of storage with an annual average is about 6500 tons. From this, if we calculate for 20 years times 6,500, there are at least 130,000 tons of waste in all these years." - explains NH, the Protected Areas specialist.

The municipality of Vlora was expected to provide a solution to waste treatment in the new Sherishta landfill as early as June 2021. This landfill, which is located 10 km from the city of Vlora, has not yet been put into operation, as the deadline has been postponed several times The construction of the site is a project financed by the German bank KfË for waste management, which cost 20.8 million euros, of which 12.5 million euros are loans, while the rest are grants.

June 2020 coincides with the time when the tender winners were announced, namely Integrated Technology Services in collaboration with the Italian company "Bulfaro Spa".

But the work remained in place since December 14, 2021, the company "Integrated Technology Services" was seized by order of the Special Court Against Corruption and Organized Crime, whose shareholder is Klodian Zoto. The latter was announced as an international wanted man for money laundering and corruption, after the incinerator scandals in Fier and Elbasan.

On February 13 of this year, the director of the Regional Waste Management Center near the Municipality of Vlora, Erinolda Lushaj, stated that the landfill of Sherishta, which was transferred to the Municipality of Vlora, would be put into operation in April.

"The Municipality of Vlora has severed the contract with the entity and now "Sherishta" is owned by the Municipality from October 2023. We are dealing with the procedures and work will start in April 2024," Lushaj declared.

According to her, one of the phases of waste encapsulation was also that for the two old waste fields, former Aviation and Orikum. But even though four months have passed since April 2024, in Orikum the remains have not been encapsulated yet. For this, in the Administrative Unit of Orikum we had a close communication with the head of this unit, Selim Haskoçela.

"For many years we have been promised by the Vlora Municipality that the waste will be removed from there. Even the pit that was opened for waste disposal was built by the Administrative Unit of Orikum, as the only solution, on a land that was expropriated by decision of the Municipal Council of Vlora", explains Haskoçela.

The head of this unit explains to us that the pollution in the environment is of great proportions since the very position of the land where the waste is thrown is in the direction of the wind currents, and as a result the smell of fermentation of the waste is conveyed to the city.

"Besides the factor of wind currents, since the phreatic waters are nearby and the soil is gravelly, that is, near the river, we have the penetration of chemicals into these waters, which is the cause of the deposition of these wastes," Haskoçela said.

The very position of the disposal site on the side of the Dukat River shows the constant risk of transporting these wastes during the period of rainfall in the direction of the bay of Vlora (Adriatic sea).

"At the mouth of the Dukat river with the sea, a large amount of waste materials such as plastic, tires, paper and organic waste are deposited every year. These wastes have a negative effect on the marine environment, thus affecting marine flora and fauna. Above all, it has an impact on the quality of water, mainly underground water, which also ends up in the sea." - says the Protected Areas specialist.

The Waste Cleaning Service for Orikum does not respect the general principles of the law on Public Disposal of Waste.

This is because it is in flagrant violation of Article 3 of Law no. No. 8094 (dated 21.3.1996), specifically in points 1, 2 and 3 of this article, which clarify that they must:

1. Any harm or danger to the health, well-being and safety of the person's life is avoided.

2. Hygienic-health requirements and any risk of air, water, soil and subsoil pollution are guaranteed

3. To preserve and protect the fauna and flora of the environment

Through a search at the Public Procurement Agency, it turns out that the Municipality of Vlora has opened a procurement procedure, where the object of the contract is the "Orikum cleaning service for the year 2023" with a fund of 27,910,434 ALL, excluding VAT. So, even though public money is made available to the city's cleaning service, the waste still goes to the same place.

Type of procurement procedure: Open procedure Service Reference number of the procedure / Lot: 67714-04-258-2023

Object of the contract / Framework Agreement: "Orikum Payment Service for the year 2023. Code according to the Common Procurement Dictionary (FPP): 19640000-4 Fund limit: 27,910,434 (twenty-seven million, nine hundred and ten, four hundred and thirty-four) Lek Pa VAT, for the needs of the Vlora Municipality

After ascertaining the problem, we sent you a letter for information to the Municipality of Vlora, specifically on May 22, 2024, to know the stage of the Sherishta landfill project and the time when the encapsulation of waste in Orikum was determined. The municipality was initially reluctant to respond. After the intervention of the Commissioner for the Right to Information, on July 2, the Public Services Company of this municipality gave us this answer:

"We inform you that the cleaning of the Orikum Administrative Unit is carried out with private operators contracted by the Vlora Municipality. The Vlora Public Services Company has no official information on the questions you have raised."

So referring to the response of the Public Services Company, even though as a competence the waste management after the deadlock of 2021 belongs to the Municipality of Vlora, it is not specified when the waste will be removed from that place.

Citizens of Orikum and the surrounding villages, Dukat, Dukat Fshat, Tragjas and Radhimë, pay a monthly cleaning tax. The number of inhabitants reaches 11976 figures, while during the tourist season (June-August), this number reaches 40 thousand inhabitants.

Each family in this area pays 3,000 new lek per year on their electricity bill, which goes towards cleaning the area. As for businesses, a small business pays 45,000 new lek per year and a large business 60,000 new lek.

According to the statistics of the Municipality of Vlora for the Administrative Unit of Orikum (year 2022), it turns out that the number of inhabitants reaches 11976, in other words if we refer to a family with 3 members, this number translates into 3720 families.

So 3720 families x 3000 old ALL = 11 million and 160 thousand new ALL. This money has gone as a cleaning tax for the Municipality of Vlora from this unit.

If we count the businesses, the data show that this area has 270 small businesses, where the municipality receives 12 million and 150 thousand lek in total. The number of large businesses reaches 70, which deposit 4 million and 200 thousand new ALL in the municipal budget.

So in total, the families and businesses of the Administrative Unit of Orikum "forgave" 27 million and 510 thousand new ALL to the municipality of Vlorë.

Despite this, every waste of Orikum and the surrounding villages continues to be deposited in the same place, where the risk of fire due to the presence of methane gas is present.

"Methane is a gas which, due to its structure, releases up to 35 times more heat into the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Its release in this landfill and the lack of management has caused the place to be engulfed in flames over the years, as a result of which it becomes a danger to the health of the residents and the gales in the surrounding ecosystem." - says the Protected Areas specialist.

According to him, fires in landfills loaded with methane gas are difficult to control and extinguishing them requires a longer time, causing great environmental and health damage in the community.

Without creating a real plan for the encapsulation and removal of these "mountains" of waste, these views will accompany not only the residents of Orikum and the surrounding villages, but also hundreds of tourists who cross this axis to go to the southern beaches. This environmental "black spot" is the biggest disappointment for tourists, at a time when our country is described in foreign media as the pearl of the Balkans./ CNA