Green Dot washes its hands of reported ‘recycling scandal’

Green Dot, which has collected PMD and paper from homes since 2006, said on Tuesday it has done everything it should after a fire destroyed the processing plant it used and is now in the process of building its own to avoid similar problems in the future.

In response to Phileleftheros reports over the past few days indicating that recycling targets are not met at Koshi landfill, where Green Dot now unloads its PMD recyclables, non-profit Green Dot said that after the 2023 fire that completely destroyed the Ecobalance waste management plant in Geri, it sought emergency solutions.

Green Dot said other plants processing waste packaging could not add Nicosia, Larnaca and Famagusta waste to their load, so Green Dot turned to Koshi landfill, while paper was sent to Cyprus Environmental Industries Ltd.

Citing January-June 2023 data, Green Dot said that “of the quantities delivered by Green Dot to Koshi landfill (10,000 tonnes annually), 50-60 per cent is recycled according to Koshi landfill reports, a percentage close to the 73 per cent achieved during the operation of Ecobalance.

“In an effort to find a permanent solution, Green Dot immediately proceeded to purchase 20,000 square metres of land in the Tseri industrial zone to erect a modern packaging waste management plant covering current and future needs,” it said.

All documents have been submitted and Green Dot is awaiting permits.

Over the years, Green Dot has delivered PMD to other facilities, such as the processing plant in Pentakomo in 2019 and 2020 and the kilns at Vasiliko in 2023, when Green Dot was turned away from Pentakomo by the Department of Environment.

“So much for them [the environment department] adhering to the waste hierarchy and following the law!” former managing director of subcontractor MDT Limassol Waste Management Company Ltd in Pentakomo, Loizos Afxentiou told the Cyprus Mail.

Afxentiou said when the waste was received at Pentakomo each stream was received and stored separately and then processed separately, “both from each other and definitely from the municipal solid waste”.

He said that mixing pre-sorted recyclables with general waste, which Green Dot and Koshi have been accused of doing, entails a loss of commercial value, making it both harder and less attractive to forward for recycling.

In September 2020, Afxentiou said, the approved operator of the Pentakomo facility and another Cypriot company actively involved in plastics recycling won the Green Dot tender for processing recyclables collected throughout the island.

Afxentiou said that “even though receiving and processing of sorted-at-source recyclables is an obligation clearly stated in [the Pentakomo] contract and approved by the Department of Environment in its environmental assessment of the project, the Department of Environment itself intervened to block the assignment of the contract, ostensibly because the facility was not yet licenced.

“In July 2023, Green Dot requested that collected quantities of PMD for a period of several days were received and processed at the Limassol IWMF at Pentakomo due to mechanical failure at the plant they collaborate with,” he said.

Afxentiou added that “the Department of Environment refused the request due to ‘serious problems with the operation of the plant’ which are, of course, not specified.”

In the end, quantities of collected PMD ended up at the nearby Enerco, a subsidiary of Vasiliko Cement Industries, where it was shredded in preparation for incineration at the cement plant kiln.

“So much for adhering to the waste hierarchy and following the law!” Afxentiou said.