TarragonaThis 2025 has started with two very worrying news for the Camp de Tarragona. One is the dismantling by the Civil Guard of a network that brought in urban waste from Italy through the Port of Tarragona that ended up in different landfills in the Ribera d'Ebre and La Conca. The law does not allow urban waste to be exported, so everyone must be responsible for their waste, but according to the Civil Guard this network falsified the documentation and transported it as if it were remains of already treated materials. The waste ended up at the plant that the Lleida company Griñó Ecològic has in Constantí and was then distributed in different landfills. According to the investigation, which left 15 people arrested, this practice dates back to 2021 and, since then, 40,000 tons of Italian waste may have been distributed through the State's landfills. The environmental group Gepec had already denounced this practice and the journalist from Tarragona Rafa Marrasé (Porta Atrás) even broadcast a documentary in No Fiction from TV3 in June 2023, where these irregularities were already explained. As if that were not enough, the Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda department carried out inspections at the plant in both 2021 and 2023 to end up saying that "adequate compliance" with the regulations is guaranteed.
The other worrying news is the closure of the Iberboard paper mill in Alcover (Alt Camp) which, in addition to leaving the hundred workers on the street, has forgotten to collect nearly 15,000 tons of waste which can be seen perfectly from the C-14 itself. The Climate Action department had carried out inspections at this paper mill and, according to the reports available to the ARA newspaper, all the reviews since 2014 already warned that "adequate compliance" with the regulations is not guaranteed. Six articles like this would be needed to list all the irregularities detected by the inspectors. There is only one year in which the technicians did not carry out any inspections: in 2024. It seems strange that a company that has always failed to comply should not be audited, but, looking closely, perhaps it is better not to waste time with so many reviews because, in the end, what are inspections for?
