The Big Stink

Sanitation workers began shoveling huge piles of rotting garbage off the streets of Seville on Friday following an agreement that ended a weeklong strike by sanitation workers.

But Spaniards here will likely continue to avoid all fresco dining and drinks in the town’s outdoor cafes for some time.

The usual sweet orange-blossom fragrance of its tree-lined streets will still stink of rotting fish and produce for days while workers try to clear 7,000 tons of refuse that piled up during the strike.

“These days no one sits outside to have a drink or eat something because it is impossible with that smell,” said Juan Manuel Garcia, owner of a bar in downtown Seville, in southern Spain, of the trash left uncollected since Seville’s garbage collectors went on strike Jan. 27.

Andres Ferreras’ business is suffering hard from the onslaught of garbage. Sales at his downtown shoe store dropped 50 % since the strike started. He has only been able to open one-third of the store’s display windows because the rest have been blocked by a 30-by-6-foot pile of waste.

Vocabulary:

to shovel: to remove by usine a shovel or similar tool

rotting: adj. in advanced state of decomposition

fresco dining: dining in the open air or outdoors

fragrance: an agreeable aroma or smell

refluse: (n.) trash

onslaught: a threatening presence or surprising amount of something

to drop: to decrease

display windows: windows of a store front where goods are placed on show

Source: CNN

See full article: The Big Stink at http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/08/spain-garbage-strike/1901451/