Paros: the recyclables leave by ship for Attica

The recyclable materials of Paros are now loaded onto a ship and travel to Attica to be sorted. On Thursday 20 August 2026 naxostimes.gr, republishing a report by Kathimerini, recorded the new route taken by the island’s blue bins: after the Recyclable Materials Sorting Centre at Agios Vlasis closed at the end of March, the materials were moved temporarily to an area of the landfill, until a fire broke out at the site at the end of July. According to preliminary findings cited by the Financial Times, the fire started inside the fenced facility, at a point where recyclable materials, branches and household waste had accumulated. Since 20 July, as the mayor of Paros, Konstantinos Bizas, says, the municipality has signed a contract with the Hellenic Recovery Recycling Corporation and the materials are gathered at a licensed site and carried by ship to the sorting centre at Koropi.

The picture across the South Aegean as a whole is heavier than the malfunction on any single island. According to the regional waste management plan in force, which is based on records from the 2019-2021 period, the region produces around 285,000 tonnes of waste a year, of which 91% ends up in landfill or baling and only 9% is recycled. The figure is worse even than the already poor national average, since the country sends almost 80% of its municipal waste to landfill. The mayor of Paros links part of the problem to the construction boom and to the operation of tourist accommodation, which, as he says, replace mattresses and furnishings every two or three years and often put them in the bins instead of the prescribed waste streams.

The same report also sheds light on a contrasting case, a few miles further west. On Sifnos around 500 tonnes of recyclables were collected in 2025 and this year it is estimated that 600 will be exceeded, with blue bins across the whole island, separate collection of glass and metals and most materials carried to Athens. The obstacle there is not residents’ participation but infrastructure: the bins are allocated on the basis of the permanent population, not the summer one. “In summer the population multiplies tenfold,” notes Nikos Venakis, who is responsible for recycling on the island, with the municipality asking for funds and a licensed site to create a green point.

The solution being set in motion is infrastructure, not transport: in early 2026 a project worth 194.9 million euros was put out to tender for new waste treatment and recovery units on Mykonos, Paros, Syros and Tinos. Until they are up and running, Paros pays twice over: the transport cost for every load that leaves the port, and the risk that the chain does not reach its end, as the July fire showed. The municipality has already asked for immediate flood-protection and anti-erosion works in the island’s fire-hit areas, in a year when the management of land and of waste keeps returning to the same agenda. No timetable has been announced for the completion of the 194.9 million euro project, nor for whether the sorting centre at Agios Vlasis will reopen.