Just about all summer long the ramblas have been full of slow-burning crop waste; dead plants and spoiled vegetables, dumped unfit for market.
The resulting, lingering stench is close on unbearable, for neary cortijo inhabitants and even those in town when the wind blows that way – keeping your windows closed is not an option in the summer.
This sort of vegetable waste should be taken to a refuse-treatment plant for such material, but the trouble is that the nearest is in Vélez Benaudalla (see photo) – a 3-day, camel trek and a packed lunch from Castell. It’s not only the distance; i.e., time consumed, but the cost in fuel… so it ends up in the local rambla.
What PP mayor, Eloy Martín, and the PSOE councillor, Antonia Antequera (who is also a provincial delegate) suggest is a sort of local holding plant where the waste can be crushed to reduce it in bulk for later transportation to the Vélez Benaudalla treatment plant.
Neither of them blame the farmers for the situation. Their differences lay in who should foot the bill, strangely enough…
Sra Antequera suggests that the conservative-run provincial council should get it sorted out, creating a network of such holding facilities along the east coast of the province. The local town halls should also chip in.
The Mayor, on the other hand, considers that it should be the responsibility of the socialist regional government. He certainly doesn’t want the farmers to pay for it, as he considers that they are the ‘motor’ of the local economy on the eastern end of the Costa Tropical.
He also pointed out that just in the municipality of Castell there are 4,000 marjales (528.42 sq/m m) under cultivation.
Editorial Comment: obviously, local farmers are having a bad time, what with the present, adverse, economic conditions, topped with the Russian embargo, so putting an extra cost on them would only serve to drive quite a few under.
However, when the farmers were making money hand over fist, we don’t recall them offering to pitch in because this problem goes back a long way.
All to often, business sectors only remember the public purse when they’re in trouble.
(News: Castell, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)