Gonçalo Amaral should never have been taken off the case!

[Alfred R Jones]

I can indeed see why the part you have placed in quote marks is absurd, which I why I did not say it. You did.

You raised it for this first time in the post to which I am replying.  Why you are making up an absurd request, putting it in quote marks, then saying the request is absurd appears to have no relevance to anything, so I'll leave you to your absurdity puzzle.

Your missing a not, as in´'did not have the resources instantly at their disposal', but I would guess most people got the gist of that part.

I really don't think you and I are on the same wavelength are we?  Never mind.  Thanks for pointing out the grammatical error, there's one in your first sentence above so let me repay the favour - I think you meant to write "is" instead of "I"  but then perhaps you didn't.  Who knows really...? &%+((£

[Alfred R Jones]

Thank you for this.  It provides a starting point that I did not have before.

At the moment, it does not say whether the planned deployment was successful.  By successful, I do not mean the bodies were found, I simply mean whether the dogs were able to work 'professionally' in such an environment.

It also appears to give an indication of the difficulty in searching a landfill site, and the resources required for such a search.

I wonder if I can work this up into the resources that would have been needed to search Barlavento?

Jolly good stuff, thank you again.

You're welcome - I believe I posted 5 other examples for you to work on as well.

[ShiningInLuz]

You said earlier: "Given the amount of dead pig in landfill, is there any reason whatsoever to think Eddie would have found a body?"

Did you mean dead pigs or pork?

Eddie will apparently only alert to the former.  That being the case, the point you aseem to be trying to make is either 1) that Portuguese landfill sites do habitually contain pig carcasses and so any attempt to sniff out a body would be futile  or 2) that the pork products that are in the landfill would confuse the dog, the dog that apparently doesn't alert to cooked pig.  Do you understand now?

ETA: did I ever state that there were landfill sites composed entirely of ham sandwiches, or was that just a silly facetious comment on your part?

Pork is dead pig.  It is not live pig, it is dead.  Eddie was trained on dead pig, and unless something very odd was going on with Eddie's training, that must have continued beyond his early days, in the absence of human body farms in the UK.

As Eddie appears to have alerted to dead pig, he appears to have alerted to pork.  It is claimed that he did not alert to cooked pork.  I am making a working assumption that he did not alert to live pigs.

I made no claim whatsoever that Eddie alerted to cooked pork.  I made it crystal clear that I was talking about uncooked pork (still dead by the way).  You are asserting that I talked about cooked pork, and the amount of cooked pork in the landfill site.  At no time did I come close to stating that cooked pork in a landfill site might confuse Eddie.

You transformed my phrase 'dead pig' into 'pig carcasses' which I did not say, and invented the concept of one or more landfill sites stuffed with pig carcasses.  This was a fanciful invention, that came from you.  Personally, I cannot think of a landfill site stuffed with pig carcases.  Do they do that in an outbreak of swine flu?

You also invented the concept of landfill sites consisting entirely of ham sandwiches.  I cannot remember if it was one landfill site, or landfill sites plural.  If you really cannot remember your invention of such a concept, I seriously suggest you may wish to get your memory checked.  A single landfill site composed entirely of ham sandwiches is not something I would forget, if I had invented it.

Do I understand now?

Well, despite it appearing that some members of the forum think the exchange has been a little heated, I am firmly convinced that my understanding of things has gone forward a fair bit.  My thanks to all the members, including yourself, who have provided useful information to bring to the situation.

I suppose I should trot off and get the oven going.  I think I am cooking a dead pig joint, aka a pork joint, for dinner tonight.  I would not like to leave it to the stage we need to throw our piece of dead pig into the waste, and have this uncooked pork ending up in the Barlavento landfill.

After that it is choices, choices.  Gravy or cauliflower in a cheese sauce?  Off topic I know.  Will this comment get pruned?

[ferryman]

I stand to be corrected.

But I think (the late) Eddie (RIP) might (have) react(ed) to a leg of pork (cooked or uncooked).

What he (or any other cadaver dog) would not react to is something like bacon, because of the way it is processed which kills the scent.

Have I got that wrong?

[slartibartfast]

Amore recent example of police and dogs conducting a search of a rubbish dump in an attempt to find a missing man http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/74728305/Roigard-Murder-Trial-Scale-of-search-for-missing-man-outlined-in-court

Any more examples needed?  Perhaps we can now put to bed the idea that police searching a landfill site looking for a missing person is such a fanciful one after all...?

Pretty good these dogs. 

[Eleanor]

Eddie alerted to ungutted pig.  One that had been left to decompose with all its innards intact.  Much like a human corpse.
This has nothing to do with butchered pig.

[slartibartfast]

I stand to be corrected.

But I think (the late) Eddie (RIP) might (have) react(ed) to a leg of pork (cooked or uncooked).

What he (or any other cadaver dog) would not react to is something like bacon, because of the way it is processed which kills the scent.

Have I got that wrong?

Yes.

Dead pig, with all of the viscera.

[slartibartfast]

Eddie alerted to ungutted pig.  One that had been left to decompose with all its innards intact.  Much like a human corpse.
This has nothing to do with butchered pig.

Beat me to it.

[Eleanor]

Beat me to it.

Snap, Slarti.  I'm just surprised that this hasn't occurred to some.

[ShiningInLuz]

What is this thing that the police knew nothing of that you keep going on about, and why would it have prevented them considering the possibility that Madeleine's body had ended up on a landfill site?

The oven is on, so let me split this into 2 parts.

I have no reason to believe that, at the time Madeleine went missing, the police understood that all of the rubbish in Barlavento (the western half of the Algarve) went through a single site.  People discussing the case around 2007/2008 appear to think there were multiple landfill sites, and that even the councils were first fly-tipping before later transporting to one of several dumps.

The process of Luz to transfer station to Barlavento landfill took quite a while to emerge.  It is not an obvious concept, nor do I think the police track European Directives or inspect landfill sites.

The most likely scenario is that they hadn't a clue.

I can remember in the UK vaguely around that time getting recycling rolled out.  There was a small green wheelie bin for grass and tree cuttings.  Then came plastic crates, for plastic, metal, cardboard/paper, glass etc.  Batteries were not to be put in the rubbish, they were to be taken to a shop that sold batteries, which was now required by law to have a receptacle for used batteries.  Electronic components were not supposed to go into the general waste.  Shops selling electrical and electronic goods were required to handle these, whether one bought a new product or not.  I hope I do not need to go near fridges, freezers or materials like used engine oil, paint cleaner etc.

I had no idea of why at the time, and I didn't care.  Recycling seemed to me to be a good thing for the sake of our children and grandchildren, so I recycled.

As I have made clear, despite 30 years in one place, I have no idea where my landfill site is, nor do I know if it goes through an intermediate transfer station.

Bottom line is simple.  I cannot think why the PJ should have known about Barlavento landfill, UNLESS THEY HAD ALREADY INVESTIGATED IT.  Who knows, maybe they did in the Cipriano case, but it appears a different tack was taken on that one.  I am not familiar with the Cipriano case therefore I shall keep my comment short.  I believe the method of body disposal was dismemberment, into a fridge, into a car, and into a car crusher in Spain.  I have great difficulty with the fridge and the car crusher, but like I said my experience of the Cipriano case is minute.

I need to check the oven, so I will move on to the second element of your post.

Assuming they were ignorant of the system, what was to stop them thinking - ahhh, landfill!  Nothing.  Not a single thing.

The only element of importance is how long it would have taken them to establish that there is a single landfill site in the whole of the Algarve, fed by multiple transfer stations.

I have made clear earlier in the thread that if they got on with it as a matter of priority, they should have been able to crack this within a couple of days of deciding that the 188 bin check was insufficient.

By that time, the whole of the western Algarve had layered in lorryload after lorryload of rubbish.  It is NOT landfill unique to Luz, it is landfill for a large number of town and cities.

[ShiningInLuz]

Would it have perhaps been a good idea for the police to put local landfill site sorters on high alert for the possible presence of a missing child's body amongst the garbage?  Any evidence that they did?

High alert? Yes it would.

No, there is no evidence that they did.

There is also no evidence that they knew where landfill was processed in the Algarve.  A bit tricky to do something unless you know that something exists.

[Carana]

Yes.

Dead pig, with all of the viscera.

Are you sure about that?

[Eleanor]

Are you sure about that?

Absolutely.

[Alfred R Jones]

Pork is dead pig.  It is not live pig, it is dead.  Eddie was trained on dead pig, and unless something very odd was going on with Eddie's training, that must have continued beyond his early days, in the absence of human body farms in the UK.

As Eddie appears to have alerted to dead pig, he appears to have alerted to pork.  It is claimed that he did not alert to cooked pork.  I am making a working assumption that he did not alert to live pigs.

I made no claim whatsoever that Eddie alerted to cooked pork.  I made it crystal clear that I was talking about uncooked pork (still dead by the way).  You are asserting that I talked about cooked pork, and the amount of cooked pork in the landfill site.  At no time did I come close to stating that cooked pork in a landfill site might confuse Eddie.

You transformed my phrase 'dead pig' into 'pig carcasses' which I did not say, and invented the concept of one or more landfill sites stuffed with pig carcasses.  This was a fanciful invention, that came from you.  Personally, I cannot think of a landfill site stuffed with pig carcases.  Do they do that in an outbreak of swine flu?

You also invented the concept of landfill sites consisting entirely of ham sandwiches.  I cannot remember if it was one landfill site, or landfill sites plural.  If you really cannot remember your invention of such a concept, I seriously suggest you may wish to get your memory checked.  A single landfill site composed entirely of ham sandwiches is not something I would forget, if I had invented it.

Do I understand now?

Well, despite it appearing that some members of the forum think the exchange has been a little heated, I am firmly convinced that my understanding of things has gone forward a fair bit.  My thanks to all the members, including yourself, who have provided useful information to bring to the situation.

I suppose I should trot off and get the oven going.  I think I am cooking a dead pig joint, aka a pork joint, for dinner tonight.  I would not like to leave it to the stage we need to throw our piece of dead pig into the waste, and have this uncooked pork ending up in the Barlavento landfill.

After that it is choices, choices.  Gravy or cauliflower in a cheese sauce?  Off topic I know.  Will this comment get pruned?

If you get any more arch, they might build a cathedral around you.  There's lots of illogical and inaccurate "content" up there and I think concentrating on your cooking at this stage is probably a very good idea for you. 
PS:  if you're going to accuse me of making a statement about landfill sites being composed entirely of ham sandwiches then perhaps you'd do me the honour of quoting me exactly?   

[ShiningInLuz]

The thread was about Sr Amaral.
It seems to have morphed into a waste management thread.

Check out:
Directive 1999/31/EC
This directive, of course, has to be enacted in each member state by the laws of those states.
Then it starts to get a bit complicated and unless you are an expert on waste disposal and how Portugal enacted the 1999 directive you are p*****g in the wind.

In this instance, I believe we are on topic.  Basically, Amaral did not have the landfill searched.  Did that, in any way, shape or form contribute to his removal?

There happens to be a document, I think from 2007, about how Portugal implemented the directive and how well Portugal was doing in this respect.  It is in English, written by someone in the EC.  If you really want a good night's sleep, let me know and I'll dig out the link.