“The stench permeates the clothing and is even perpetuated inside the parked vehicles,” say the workers of the companies in the Les Hortes de Mataró industrial estate to exemplify the constant episodes of pestilence that they endure from the Maresme Waste Management Consortium. “We can't even open the windows in summer” so they judge the situation to be unsustainable. “Breathing this persistent stench daily, for years, has to be harmful to health” they warn from nearby industries and in this sense, they remember that at the end of 2021 dioxin emissions were already exceeded in one of the two incineration lines. .
“It is a very uncomfortable situation to have to receive international clients in these conditions,” says one of the multinationals, which has compiled a chronology of fifty bad odors reported in writing since 2018. As if the stench were not enough, They add that sometimes “we must endure a persistent beeping that makes one go crazy,” they explain. They have repeatedly reported all of these events to the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard, which at all times “has taken note” and to the City Council, “which has no good will and ignores us,” they point out from the direction of a of the industries.
“It's all good words but the stench persists” maintain the workers in the area that La Vanguardia has contacted, so now “after complaining repeatedly since 2018” they have decided to take the case to the Environmental Prosecutor's Office” they admit. from one of the prestigious international firms established in the industrial area. “We tried with the City Council and we did not get a response,” they criticize, while the complaints to the Department of Environmental Medicine of the Generalitat “are still in the investigation process.” They have even found “swarms of hundreds of bees on the ground, which do not die, but are left as if stunned by the emissions from the incinerator,” which they do not hesitate to attribute to “a serious environmental problem” that they are not willing to address. that “the administrations hide it, since they are playing with our health.”
Already in 2019, an evaluation report on olfactometric controls in the surroundings of the Maresme waste treatment center, commissioned by the Consortium itself from a specialized company, detected constant exceedances and non-compliance in the industrial areas and the urban area of Mataró. Based on the IMO professional assessment criteria (Indices of Odoriferous Annoyance), several days of stench were reported that exceeded the “intolerable” category.
In this sense, the environmental entity Terra Verda of Mataró has stressed through its spokesperson, Juan Sánchez, that "they want to hide from us that the incinerator pollutes" and remember the episodes in 2022 in which the emission of dioxins was demonstrated. Furthermore, they emphasize that "they burn everything" and give as an example the sanitary waste "that they incinerated during the covid", a fact that they reported to the Prosecutor's Office. Now, they demand that the mayor, David Bote, also president of the Consorci, "let himself hide behind the positive reports, that he come down to reality and provide the means so that the neighbors do not suffer these episodes of plague anymore."
The Department of Medi Ambient of the Generalitat claims to “be aware of this problem” but they indicate that there is no specific regulation to regulate the levels of emission and immission of odors in the State and establish that “each city council can order its own regulation of these aspects". In the specific case, they know that the Mataró City Council granted environmental authorizations to the activities of the industrial estate. However, to reassure residents, they point out that in the latest inspections by the Department of Climate Action “the conditions related to atmospheric emissions in the area have been satisfactory” with no non-compliance, both in the incinerator and in the water treatment plant. Maresme wastewater, located next to the waste treatment plant.
For its part, the Waste Agency of Catalonia maintains that it carries out periodic controls and inspections of the treatment plant and that they incorporate the control of odor pollution episodes. They acknowledge that they have received complaints from companies affected by the episodes of pestilence in the area and that they have notified the Mataró City Council.
The Mataró City Council, whose mayor, David Bote, is also president of the Waste Consortium, instead defers responsibility for controls to the Generalitat, who has granted environmental authorization to the assessment center. The municipal government has limited itself to diplomatically acknowledging receipt of complaints from one of the companies in the industrial estate “due to bad odors” and to obtain a response, it will require the consortium to provide “information on the measures they are taking to address the problem.” .
The Consortium claims to be aware of the odoriferous impact of the plant. The impact is caused “by the biomethanization treatment of the organic matter” that comes from the rest fraction. They remember that each year they treat 100,000 tons of organic matter from the gray containers of Maresme and Vallès Oriental. “It is an issue that concerns us” and that is why they assure that they are implementing an action plan to install new deodorization systems that “will neutralize the molecules responsible for odors” and minimize the impact.
From the waste recovery center, they launch a dart at citizen conscience since "if the population correctly recycled organic waste, this problem would disappear" and they point out that 5% of the 210,000 tons of waste correspond to food waste. As a long-term solution, the Consortium and the Temporary Business Union that manages it are starting a decarbonization project in which new technologies will be implemented. An “innovative project in the State” that involves a comprehensive renovation of the facilities to provide “a definitive solution to odors.”
