The Association of Municipal Waste Management (Sidor) states that it is still difficult to estimate the quantity of waste caused by the floods of the last few weeks in Luxembourg. The natural disaster has made it impossible to dispose of all this bulky waste in the immediate future.
The affected municipalities have been flooded with new waste in recent weeks, most of which is taken to the Sidor site in Leudelange where it is incinerated by a private company. Usually, about 140 lorries arrive at the site every day.
Pauline Van Wissen, the director of Sidor, states that they normally receive 1,000 tonnes of bulky waste per week from all the participating municipalities. In July, this volume rose to 4,000 tonnes. In one week, Sidor received 3,100 tonnes more than in a normal week, according to Van Wissen.
In principle, the incineration and storage capacities can be increased without issues, since the two bunkers can accommodate 10,000 tonnes of bulky waste, but as Sidor has scheduled an overhaul of their installations in September, which will require a complete shutdown of the machines for three weeks, waste cannot all be processed.
No incineration for three weeks means that the waste of all participating municipalities must be stored during this period. Bulky flood waste must therefore be stored temporarily in the municipalities concerned.
Van Wissen points out that Sigre (the waste management association in the east of the country) mainly had difficulties in the municipality of Rosport/Mompach because of the substantial amount of damage there. A lot of waste was collected before it was stored in Sigre's own landfill until the necessary space is available at the Sidor site.
This exceptional situation, which citizens may not be aware of, should, however, in no way affect the collection of household or bulky waste in the rest of the country.
