The first tangible consequences of Brexit they are already noticed in Gibraltar and they are not nice at all. Hundreds of tons of urban solid waste They have accumulated for almost a week in a landfill on the Rock because the company that transports them to a treatment plant in Los Barrios (Cádiz) no longer has the necessary permission to remove them from the British colony.
This has caused said waste to be temporarily deposited in the eastern part of the Rock, in front of the beach, and the mountain is already impressive. If the situation persists, a problem could be generated. public health.
Gibraltar was until now covered by the European Union legislation (EU), specifically
with Regulation (EC) 1013/2006 regarding waste shipments (Regulation on transboundary shipment of waste or TSW Regulation, for its acronym in English), Now, with the entry into force of Brexit, the United Kingdom and therefore Gibraltar no are part of the EU and These regulations are no longer applicable.
Agreement with the Commonwealth
A Gibraltarian company contracted by the Government of the Rock was in charge of transferring them to the waste treatment plant that the company Aguas y Residuos Campo de Gibraltar (Arcgisa), dependent on the Commonwealth of Municipalities of Campo de Gibraltar, manages in the neighboring town of the neighborhoods. This has been done in recent decades thanks to an agreement with the regional entity.
The permits to remove this household rubbish from Gibraltar had been processed by the Andalusian Government but now they have become the competence of the Ministry of Ecological Transition as this activity is considered as an export from a third territory.
Gibraltar, with more than 30,000 inhabitants, It has a floating population of around 14,000 cross-border workers, in addition to those who enter the colony by land through the La Línea de la Concepción Customs, the airport and the port of Gibraltar, for tourism, leisure or business.
30,000 tons per year
Every yearaccording to the data provided to ABC in its day by the Association of Municipalities of the Campo de Gibraltar, more than 30,000 tons of domestic garbage are taken out of the Rock in trucks through the Land Customs of La Línea and taken to the South Europe environmental complex of the aforementioned public company. For this service Gibraltar pays more than 1.2 million euros each year to the public company Arcgisa.
Neither the Association of Municipalities nor Arcgisa have wanted to pronounce on the problem that has been generated and on whether the agreement signed at the time is in danger, which represents a significant injection of funds for the county entity.
For its part, the association Verdemar-Ecologists in Action assures that the United Kingdom is negotiating an agreement with the EU on this matter and calls for it to be reached as soon as possible to guarantee “good traceability” of this waste “before it becomes a Environmental problem and all kinds of rubbish can be seen in the Strait of Gibraltar».
The conservation organization maintains that it is a bureaucratic issue and appeals for a solution to be found as soon as possible.
On the possibility of transferring them by ship to UKenvironmentalists warn that it would mean a “major ecological footprint”.
The tunnels as a temporary landfill
If there is no solution, the Government of Gibraltar already has a plan B which is part of their contingency plans in case there is a rough divorce from the EU. Brussels and London negotiate an exit.
The United Kingdom allocated around one million euros to the acquisition of machinery to crush, compact and wrap this waste for storage and subsequent export in containers, and donated them to Gibraltar.
If the problem persists and as this newspaper has learned, the idea of the Gibraltarian Government is to crush them, compact them and wrap them to temporarily store them in one of the tunnels of the Rock until the current situation is clarified and a final decision has to be taken on this matter.
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