THE Council of Majorca (CIM) approved an agreement with the Palma city council, which will allow it to expand the incinerator.
The proposal was supported by votes from the right-wing Partido Popular (PP), the socialist party for the Balearic Islands (PSIB) and Majorcan Unionist party (UM), although the United Left-Greens (EU-EV) criticised this agreement claiming that it would increase rates and the Majorcan Socialist Party (PSM) said that this new proposal showed that the CIM accepted that its rubbish disposal plan had failed.
The Head of the Local Co-operation department in the Council of Majorca, Miquel Riera, justified the need to create new incineratiors due to the population increase. He also added that this project will complement others, such as the reduction of waste and recycling.
Riera did not deny that rates could increase but he did say that this will all depend on whether people separate their rubbish before it goes into the bins or not, and if there is an increase in the price of diesel. In any case, he added that if the rates did have to go up, it would not be a significant increase, as the United Left-Green Party is proposing.
Yesterday's agreement will mean that Palma city council will give the Council of Majorca land of approximately 55'000 square metres with a 35 year lease for two additional incinerators.
Palma city council will receive 1.2 million euros each year for granting this land.
This new plant could be ready to start work in one year or one and a half years, said Riera, the yearly cost of which he could not answer but he thinks it will be less than the 30'000 million pesetas estunated by former environment minister Margalida Rosselló.
It was Rosselló, who was most argumentative at the meeting, as she did not stop making references to the irresponsibility of the Balearic Government for spending so much money on extending the incinerator plant whilst ignoring the Environmental Technologies Park. It is the worst decision that could have be made, in terms of the environment and economically speaking, she said, predicting that there would be significant increases for rubbish rates.
Furthermore, this new incinerator enlargement is proof of the incapacity to carry forward the waste management plan agreed in February 2004, which amongst other things estimated that 38 percent of all waste would be recycled and 50 percent of organic waste would be separated, she added. None of these aims have yet been achieved, Rosselló said.