The movement of trucks that cross the borders between Spain and France transporting untreated and unseparated urban waste – and some of it highly toxic – threatens to turn Spain into the dumping ground for the south of France. French urban waste collection companies send this waste to Spanish landfills, especially in Aragon, where its treatment is much cheaper. They do it through trucks that transport illegal garbage covered with the first layers of waste that are treated and classified.
Random checks by Spanish and French security forces estimate that one in every three trucks intercepted at the border heading to Spain transports illegal garbage. According to the investigations, these are French and Spanish companies – mainly located in Catalonia and Aragon – that collaborate to transport urban waste from France to Spain without managing it first, such as paint cans, batteries, solvents, cleaning products… Some very toxic.
Carlos Astráin, from the Central Operational Unit for the Environment (UCOMA) of Seprona, recalls that Spanish and European legislation prohibits the entry of waste of this type from other countries into Spain, under the principle that each country must be responsible for theirs. Yes, waste that has already been treated can enter, so criminal organizations pretend to transport this type of garbage.
Under the first layers of loading with treated, classified and non-hazardous waste, such as paper, cardboard or construction waste, untreated urban garbage is hidden. Trucks that are discovered pay a penalty, but that fine, although it is large, does not deter these criminal organizations from continuing with this lucrative business.
But why is it so profitable for French companies to bring to Spain the garbage they throw in the containers of some municipalities in Bordeaux, the Côte d’Azur or the French Basque Country? In France, the management of one ton of urban waste (its treatment and disposal) costs 250 euros, including 50 euros for taxes. In Spain, the cost for the same, including taxes, is 40 euros.
Some organized criminal groups have realized the profitability of this illicit activity: a truck transporting 20 tons of waste in France pays 5,000 euros to manage it (20 tons for 250 euros each), while in Spain the cost would be 800 euros.
Researchers estimate that criminal organizations can obtain a profit of more than 3,000 euros for each truck that crosses the border. This means that, if between 10 and 20 vehicles enter daily, the benefit would range between 30,000 and 60,000 euros per day. An underestimation, since, as Astráin explains, in the controls carried out in the Augias operation by the Civil Guard and the Gendarmerie – carried out several times a year for three days –, of every 120 trucks intercepted by the agents , between 35 and 45 were reported for carrying untreated waste.
For Spain, this activity represents an environmental problem: burying tons of untreated garbage can cause serious damage to ecosystems and the health of the population near these facilities. For France, the problem is fiscal, due to the large amount of money that is lost to its coffers by evading the payment of waste management taxes.
The Civil Guard, and specifically Seprona, has included the fight against waste trafficking among its priorities, and so has the French Gendarmerie. Crimes against the environment, including waste trafficking, are already the fourth most important criminal activity in the world after drug trafficking, human trafficking and counterfeiting. In the European Union alone, according to recent studies, illicit waste trafficking generates revenues of between 4,000 and 15,000 million euros annually.
In 2022, the Civil Guard and the French Gendarmerie launched the joint operation Augias for the cross-border control of waste trafficking, with special emphasis on Irún (Gipuzkoa). The objective of this operation, explains Carlos Astráin, is to obtain information that can be used to open more specific investigations.
There have already been some, such as the so-called ‘Poubelle’, which led to the dismantling, last December, of a criminal organization that would have earned 16 million euros since 2020 after French waste collection companies hired its services to get rid of of them and bury them in a landfill in Zaragoza.