After the overwhelming rejection of the biowaste plant by residents, the PSOE government team will call an extraordinary plenary session to revoke the free transfer of 3,580 square meters of land to the Consortium for the proposed facility.
The mayor of Los Montesinos, José Manuel Butrón, and his PSOE government team have backtracked following local pressure and are backing down. The Council now plans to call an extraordinary plenary session to revoke the agreement of July 10 in which it gifted 3,580 square meters of land, free of charge, to the Vega Baja Sostenible Consortium for the purpose of building an organic waste composting plant.
An unprecedented and unexpected protest by residents of this normally sleepy town, organised in just a few weeks, which brought more than a thousand Montesineros out onto the streets voicing their displeasure at the planned installation in the Levante II industrial estate, has forced the municipal government to back down.
The plant was to be the first bio-waste treatment plant in the Vega Baja, prepared for the transformation of the organic fraction without impurities – domestic and catering food waste – into natural fertilizer. The plant would take on about 4,500 tons of waste per year with compensation for the municipality – 4 euros per ton and 22,000 euros per year in fees.
The alternative for the Consortium would be land in Rojales, but it is clear that the rejection of Los Montesinos will not encourage the neighbouring municipality to take on the project and with deadlines running out and European funding of more than one million euros out of the four million total cost of the project up in the air there now very little room for any further setbacks.
The Bajo Segura only has the Dolores transfer plant and a very generic proposal from Orihuela to host the bulk of the recovery plant, after ruling out the Torremendo site.
