In July 2022, the Cabildo of Tenerife and the FCC-Urbaser joint venture signed the new waste management contract on the Island agreed upon a year earlier, which will be valid until 2037, with the possibility of extending it for four more years, and which has an allocation budget of 397,475,058 euros. The signing of this document thus formalized the largest contract in the history of the Cabildo.
However, in just over a year, non-compliance with that contract by the union of companies has led the current government group of the insular Corporation to open a penalty file, as advanced this week by the insular director of Waste. , Alejandro Molowny, that described the company’s management in the Arico Environmental Complex as “disastrous or non-existent”, echoing the liquidation of the year 2022. “When we were becoming an example, the opposite has happened since July 2022, without there being monitoring and surveillance of the contract clauses by the previous island Government,” says Molowny. . Furthermore, he adds: “We have detected in the liquidation that runs from July to December 2022 that the recovery of waste has been very low and, therefore, we have requested an audit”. For now, it rules out that the contract with the management company can be terminated. “Until the open penalty file is resolved,” he says. Of course, 14 million euros have already been withheld in four invoices that have contrary reports “due to deficiencies in the service.” Among the demands on the new concessionaire in the specifications is the recovery of at least 42% of the plastics; 51% of steel; 50% of aluminum; 38% brick; 20% glass; 18% of paper and cardboard, and the remains of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), 37%.
It has been the workers of the Complex who They have warned about the poor working conditions – 30 work when there should have been 70 – And so they have exposed it to the local Corporation of Arico and to the residents affected by the bad odors and the presence of rodents in some areas near the “island landfill.”
City hall
The mayor of Arico, Olivia Delgado, reported that non-compliance has been detected in the conditions of the Integrated Environmental Assessment. “We have asked the Environmental Protection Agency for information on whether the non-compliance has been corrected and for an urgent meeting with the Agency’s executive director,” she said.
Likewise, he stated: “We have also requested from the Department of Ecological Transition a new extraordinary environmental inspection, as well as more frequent periodic inspections in order to carry out adequate monitoring of correct compliance with the conditions of the AAI, to avoid damage to neighbors. of this municipality.”
