Comment: What are we going to do about Ramblars burning so often?

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 – CARLOS LÓPEZ with Mike Smith

Carlos López from Xàbia AL DÍA has published his comments on the latest fire at the Ramblers landfill.

It was 11 a.m. on Sunday. I get a message. A new fire in Ramblars. The green waste mountain of the so-called “plant waste transfer plant” burns. Xàbia is a town that lives off second home tourism, the one that is so reviled now because it uses a lot of water in maintaining the green gardens and filling the swimming pools. That model that now has to be changed and from which we have benefited from the beginning of the times.

I don’t know what happens that every so often there is a fire in this transfer plant. Five years ago, fire, ten years ago, fire. All those times XAD was there reporting the events. And yesterday we did it too. But what about Ramblars? What happens is that nothing happens.

We will be waiting for a month for the mountain of waste to burn out, breathing smelly air and when the fire goes out on its own, because those who know recommend it, the news will have disappeared. I myself do not remember asking in the previous two if there were consequences for the company responsible for the landfill. They didn’t tell us either. The wave just passed and we forgot.

I have written on several occasions about contracts, and one of them was precisely that of Ramblars. Treating the 18,000 tons of waste that is produced in Xàbia – mainly by those second homes that generate employment throughout the year – costs more or less half a million euros per year. The contract obliges the company to eliminate 1,200 tons of waste per month – transfer it to the recovery plants (incinerators) – and it also imposes serious or very serious penalties in the event of a fire, I remember that well.

We will have to wait to see if the local government reports any sanction. Or perhaps we have to find out – like everything else – because the company files an Administrative Litigation, which is the place where many companies and individuals end up in their conflicts, founded or not, with the Council. Do you know how many disputes our Council has? 19.

And meanwhile what do we do with Ramblars?

I well remember that at the time when the PP was in charge there was a project to seal the landfill, there was even a budget. I do not remember the departure, but I do remember some statements by the historic Ricardo Costa -at the time secretary general of the PPCV – pushing for that investment, in the usual visits by regions to sell management (the same as those of now). Obviously, the proposal that was on a shelf in the old headquarters of the PSPV on Calle San Joaquín entitled “Biomass plant in Ramblars” has not been made, nor has it been made.

We just haven’t done anything. Which is what is always happens in this town. Nothing other than a wave comes, the castle falls and we fall from the armchair.

The Ecologistas en Acción said it well: “wipes, outfall, sewers and now Ramblars”, the whole of waste management in Xàbia is terrible. Luckily there are responsible citizens who have been recycling and separating their rubbish at home for a long time. Because yes, that would also be a failure. And the wipes, because we will become more and more aware, but politicians will do nothing that one day the citizen will get tired of always being his scapegoat.

PS: Do not rule out that soon the PSOE will produce a project in Ramblars from its sleeve, everything can happen in this town.