The digging out of a third huge rubbish landfill site in Loulé has started. The dump is designed to store about 130,000 tons of unsorted waste per year, for 10 years - then another one will need to be dug.
The Sotavento Sanitary Landfill at Vale do Zebro, Cortelha “expands the capacity of depositing unsorted waste collected from the municipalities of the eastern Algarve."
According to Algar, the waste company responsible for the work, "the construction was already planned under the initial landfill project. The new dump will employ the best available techniques of environmental preservation in order to guarantee the waterproofing of the soil and the protection of the aquifers.”
Liquids emanating from the dump, says the company, will be collected and sent off to a treatment station to be neutralised, adding that "as the dump fills up, biogas drains will be built which will allow gases to be collected and used to produce electricity."
This €4 million contract to dig what is effect is a vast pit, lined with special layers of membrane, should be completed in 16 months.
The dump will take the unsorted waste from Loulé, Faro, Olhão, São Brás de Alportel, Tavira, Vila Real de Santo António, Castro Marim and Alcoutim council areas.
In June this year a fire, that freed up scarce landfill space at Cortelha by burning tonnes of dumped rubbish, triggered environmental organisation, Almargem, to demand an independent inquiry.
The fire, whose causes remain unknown, enabled a convenient increase in capacity and may have damaged the immediate environment and aquifers - without an inquiry, the public will never know.
A consequence of Algar opening the new dump alongside the existing ones has been the destruction of protected oak trees in an area of National Ecological Reserve, not that the council seems to mind as licences keep being authorised despite a lack of reporting on the environmental impact of the fire.
See also: 'Algarve waste company suspected of setting light to its own landfill site 'to free up space'