In the natural heart of Córdoba, the passage of the Guadalquivir through the Andalusian city, a small island of dirt has emerged with thousands of wet wipes and mud that illustrates citizen incivility and its constant impact that hammers the environment.
The recent rains and the fluvial current have exposed to all the shame of a city that drags the same problem spread throughout the country, which clogs its sanitation networks and pollutes nature through its toilets.
"About 50 cubic meters of wipes and mud in a World Heritage area such as the surroundings of the mosque and in the Sotos de la Albolafia natural monument."
José Larios, president of the Fundación Transición Verde, thus defines the islet that he denounced last Monday on his social networks.
This ecologist walks daily along the Cordovan banks of the Guadalquivir and for years has contemplated the plague of wipes that floods the entire urban course of the river.
"Only now it is more attractive since they cleaned two eyes of the Roman Bridge and someone had the wonderful idea of making an island where it did not exist," he adds, critical of the management of this protected but permanently stained natural enclave.
From the Roman Bridge you can see the small mountain of dirt surrounded by ducks and dead vegetation.
Little Bittern with remains of a wet wipe in its beak.
JOSE LARIOS
In Córdoba alone, the City Council spends a million euros each year and removes 10,000 kilos of wipes, according to municipal sources.
For the moment, the island of towels and sediment will remain for days or weeks next to the Torre de la Calahorra, waiting for the level of the river to drop, which has risen with the latest rains, and that for the moment prevents cleaning, which will be carried out the Board and the Cordoba City Council.
Meanwhile, birds such as the little bittern consume remains of the hygienic product confused as food for this heron in the river area between the Roman Bridge and the San Rafael bridge.
After years of upward expansion through the sewers, the scourge of throwing wipes down the toilet will foreseeably suffer a turnaround this spring, when the Government publishes the royal decree that develops the extended responsibility of this product by companies, according to sources from Ecological Transition .
In other words, the ministry will clarify how the producers will pay for the cleaning of the sanitation and water treatment infrastructures, which ranges between 600 and 1,100 million euros per year, according to calculations by Aeopas (Spanish Association of Public Operators of Supply and Sanitation).
The obligation was already included in the Waste and Contaminated Soils Law approved 10 months ago, but it was awaiting its necessary regulatory development to find out who will pay the fine.
Aeopas has long called for a ban on wipes or warnings with giant letters on their packaging to prevent them from ending up in the toilet, but in their absence the expected economic patch may shake the sector and provoke its reaction.
“We managed to reduce its consumption very slowly and not substantially, campaigns are needed in maternity hospitals, schools and workplaces.
It is not a choice of culture over economy, but of responsibility in consumption”, sums up its manager, Luis Babiano.
“The waste law is an important measure that will alleviate, but it must be completed with campaigns to raise awareness of the problem”, he stresses.
The Guadalquivir river, as it passes through Córdoba capital, on Thursday.PACO PUENTES
"It's a monster"
In Córdoba, when the rains get worse, the fecal waters mix with the rainwater and that cocktail that drags wipes ends up in collectors that discharge into the Guadalquivir.
Rafael Carlos Serrano, manager of the Emacsa municipal water company, criticized this Thursday: “We cannot continue allowing wipes with the damage they cause, we have to continue fighting to raise awareness.
It is a problem that has been repeated for years in all cities and causes many problems at an environmental level, it is a scourge, a monster”.
In parallel, the delegate of the Andalusian Government in Córdoba, Adolfo Molina, recalled this Thursday: "We all know that we should not throw the wipes down the toilet, it is as simple as throwing it away."
After the problem of wipes, exacerbated during the pandemic due to confinement, the low citizen awareness and the need for campaigns and civic education beat in the background.
Spain maintains a very low recycling rate, which in 2020 was only 36%, according to Eurostat data.
Europe has set the goal of 60% for all countries in 2030, a galaxy for homeland speed.
In full confinement, the sale of wet wipes increased by 50% in Spain, according to data from Greenpeace, and evacuation and purification showed the problem more than ever.
The use is more widespread among the urban population and often associated with babies and tourism.
"Wipes and other plastic elements are disintegrating into microparticles that end up directly in our riverbeds, rivers and seas, where the fibers can take more than 100 years to degrade into even smaller fragments," they censor from Greenpeace, which estimates 700 marine species affected by plastic pollution.
Small islet formed by wipes and other materials, on Thursday in Córdoba.PACO PUENTES
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