The new council of the municipality of Apokoronas is almost six months in office and in that time refuse collection has become an issue, with many residents complaining about uncollected rubbish piling up around bins that remain uncollected for many days.
The problem appeared to be in both the inadequate rubbish collections by the council cleaning department and the contact with the waste reprocessing plant DEDISA which set too low a threshold of waste accepted from Apokoronas in relation to the needs of the municipality. The mayor agreed a new contract with DEDISA which will increase the volume of waste taken to the plant until the end of 2015 at a cost of €370 K, which Mr Koukianakis said will be met by existing funds, without putting additional costs to the ratepayers, as the additional costs will be met by increased revenues from collecting overdue water bills.
At the same time the council has put out a tender for a private contractor to take over refuge collection who will be also responsible for maintaining and cleaning the bins, cleaning common open areas in the villages and provide specialist vehicles to clean the streets and the beaches, and also collect large items and builder’s rubble .
The councils budget for cleaning and refuse collection is €198K
“We have quite a lot more work to do in keeping Apokoronas clean” Mr Koukianakis said. “This will cost us almost twice as much this year but, but the benefits for the residents and visitors will be very noticeable this year” he added.
