Garbage smoke covers Vlora in the middle of the tourist season

On Thursday 25 July, flames engulfed the waste field in Vlora and sent huge plumes of smoke over the entire town at the height of the tourist season, alarming residents and tourists.

This is the fourth year in a row that the fire has broken out in such proportions, revealing the inability of local and central authorities to solve the problem.

And while the smoke has covered the streets, the residents of the area near the landfill complain of breathing difficulties and a hopeless situation.

"We can barely breathe. Like us, like the elders and the children, because I have a little son, we were poisoned", says a young man who lives 50 meters from the waste disposal site of the city of Vlora. He says that for those who live near the area, the situation is repeated, as smaller fires are present almost all year.

The waste disposal site in Vlora, considered dangerous by the local authorities for years, should have been closed and the Municipality of Vlora should have deposited the waste in the new Sherishta landfill as of June 2021. But the deadline for the opening of the latter is postponed year after year and the works there are blocked.

The Sherishta landfill is just one of the acts of the saga of the incinerator affair in Albania. Its construction is part of an integrated project for waste management in the Vlora region worth 20.8 million euros financed by KfË, of which 12.5 million euros are loans and the rest are grants.

In June 2020, Integrated Technology Services, in cooperation with the Italian company Bulfaro Spa, was announced as the winner of a tender of 9.8 million euros for the construction of the landfill with a capacity of 350 thousand tons of waste. But from December 14, 2021, the company Integrated Technology Services is under preventive seizure by order of the Special Court Against Corruption and Organized Crime.

Its sole shareholder, Klodian Zoto, has been declared an international wanted by the State Police and has been convicted twice by the court for money laundering and corruption charges in the affair of the incinerators of Elbasan and Fier, while he expects to be tried for the affair as well. of the capital. This fact has also paralyzed the work in Sherishte, leaving Vlora for years at the mercy of the poisonous gases that come out from the burning of the waste field.

"We are facing the fact of an environmental crime, due to the fact that all citizens of Volonia, including tourists, have more than 24 hours of being exposed to this powerful negative pollutant for people's health," says Niko Dumani, an environmental activist. .

Dumani says the landfill fire has been there for a long time, but it erupted into flames and smoke that blanketed the city, due to strong winds in the past two days. The environmental expert says that the authorities have been neglecting the situation for years, not providing solutions.

For him, the situation is alarming. "They contain many gases harmful to human health, even the burning of plastic is accompanied by carcinogenic gases, but the main thing is that the smoke density was so great that it covered the entire city of Vlora," he added.

Residents of the area near the waste disposal site have lost hope that the situation will be resolved, as they go about their daily lives amid the suffocating smoke, they blame the government for the situation.

"To whom should I appeal, when the word falls on deaf ears. They do it themselves. The state itself does this. Year after year, we have this conversation here", says a 50-year-old man.

Meanwhile, the fire continued on Friday. Similar cases have shown that firefighters are unable to completely extinguish flames in landfills due to deep burning and gases released from the waste.

The mayor of Vlora, Ermal Dredha, did not respond to BIRN's questions on the management of the situation until the publication of this article. Reporter.al