Joshua Parfitt
EXASPERATION has returned to Denia as its municipal recycling plant is on fire AGAIN in what increasingly appears an annual tradition.
Flames erupted on Sunday, November 10, in the 15m-high black mountains of compost created from beach algae and green waste as a noxious cloud travelled for kilometres towards the La Xara area.
Two firefighting crews were dispatched to contain the blaze – but the slow burning has penetrated to the core of the compost mounds meaning smoke is still billowing out over a week later.
“We are separating the remains so that the fire does not spread. We must avoid it at all costs because it would be very dangerous,” the head of Denia’s fire service said.
He added the plant ‘is oversaturated with waste’ and so spontaneously combusted, releasing the very carbon it was supposed to recycle into fertile soil.
“So that this event does not happen again, the recipe is simple,” the firefighter said.
“The alarming amount of waste in the plant must be reduced. If not, I am convinced that in a few months there will be another one, and the only thing we can do in those cases is to let it burn.”
