Paros: protest at the landfill and FODSA's reply

A symbolic protest at the entrance to the sanitary landfill site of Paros is being planned for the afternoon of Sunday 16 August 2026 by the Paros Citizens’ Movement. In its appeal the movement speaks of an accumulation of rubbish, recyclable material and bulky items at points around the island after the recent fire, and raises a public health issue amid the high temperatures of August. The invitation is addressed to residents and visitors and places the gathering precisely at the point where the island’s waste ends up, so that the demand is linked to the operation of the facility and not only to collection. The movement notes that the picture is not confined to one spot but concerns scattered collection points in settlements and on coastal roads, and calls for an immediate collection plan before the end of the month.

Over the same period, the South Aegean Solid Waste Management Body responded publicly with a press release dated 14 August 2026. In it, it states that “the gates of the Paros landfill were, are and remain open” for waste that arrives there lawfully and in accordance with the site’s operating rules. The body refers to article 7 of the Paros Municipality Cleanliness Regulation, which governs cases of force majeure and suspension of operation at disposal sites, and shifts responsibility for the state of the island to the municipal authority. The two sides thus give different interpretations of the same event: one speaks of an inability to dispose of waste, the other of rules that were not observed. FODSA clarifies that waste is received on the basis of specific hours and categories of material, and that bulky and green waste require different handling from mixed waste. It does not state the quantities accepted over the past ten days, nor whether any particular loads were refused.

The question of waste on Paros is not new. The deadlock over bulky waste had already been referred to the public prosecutor earlier in August, as TodayGrid recorded in the report “Paros: bulky waste deadlock goes to the prosecutor”. The island’s population multiplies in August, with the result that waste volumes peak exactly when the margins of the infrastructure are at their narrowest. In the same week, the Municipality of Antiparos issued a separate appeal to residents and visitors about cleanliness in the settlement, showing that the pressure concerns the island group more widely and not just one island. The permanent population of Paros stands at around 14,000 residents, a figure that multiplies in August. The collection fleet and the municipalities’ cleaning staff, however, are calculated on the basis of permanent numbers, which creates a structural gap between demand and capacity every summer.

Sunday’s protest will show whether the issue remains at the level of press releases or leads to a joint plan between the municipality and the waste management body. At the time of writing no public response by the Paros municipal authority to the FODSA announcement had been recorded, nor any announcement of extra collection rounds or of temporary handling of bulky waste. More from the island on the Paros page. The next critical point is the end of the tourist peak, when the real account of the quantities received by the facility is usually drawn up. The issue is also connected with the wider waste management planning for the Cyclades, where shipping residues off the island depends on ferry schedules and on freight costs.