Council launches two new boats for keeping sea clean

THERE has been a spate of complaints about the state of the Playa de Palma this week, but yesterday, deputy Mayor Antoni Nadal, claimed that the rubbish floating in the sea and washed up on the beach was due to “natural phenomena.” Nadal, the deputy Mayor in charge of the environment and the president of EMAYA, was speaking on the occasion of the public presentation of two new boats that will back up the service that EMAYA provides in the collection of floating rubbish. He was joined at the inauguration by Catalina Cirer, the Mayor of Palma, and signalled that the visit to the beach had enabled him to “verify the impact of waste material in the sea”. According to the deputy Mayor, the rubbish that accumulates on the beaches is attributable to flotsam that is drawn down by currents from the Gulf of León and the Straights of Gibraltar; also to the proliferation of algae that are the result of unusually high water temperatures; rubbish thrown overboard from ships and not least to the rising to the surface of floating waste due to increased salt concentration of the water. He mentioned that his department had firmly ruled out that the increase in accumulated rubbish along the coast was due to “lack of control of sewage water”. In order to combat pollution in the waters surrounding the island, the city council has signed an agreement with the Balearic Tourist Ministry who will provide 20'000 of the 55'000 euros needed to clean up the floating debris. In order to support the cleaning programme, EMAYA has extended the timetable for flotsam collection from 48 to 130 hours a week, and it is recommended that rubbish collection boats will now operate from April until the end of the year instead of only for five months. There are now five rubbish collection boats, he added.
Nadal also announced that as of next month, contracts will be revised and that the city council will monitor the activities of companies engaged in beach cleaning in the municipality. Regarding the possibility of the opening of proceedings against the said companies, Nadal commented that for the moment “none have been opened” although his department has signed a commitment to improvement that will affect the beach of Ciudad Jardín. According to the deputy Mayor, during the whole of the year of 2002, 36 tonnes of waste material were collected from the Palma coastline, while during the first seven months of the present year, nearly 45 tonnes have been collected. His calculations show that if the present pattern is continued, the volume of waste on the beaches of Palma will be doubled this year.