"The company board (will) hold an immediate tender for the pilot transport of 60,000 tonnes of sludge outside Greece," the water and sewerage company (EYDAP) said in a statement.

The sludge shipments will be sent "to countries which have a licensed facility to receive or treat waste," EYDAP said.

The Greek authorities have spent years debating the ultimate fate of the sludge, which has been accumulating at the water treatment plant of Psyttalia, a small uninhabited islet off the coast of Athens, since September.

The sewerage company, which is supervised by the environment ministry, had originally planned for the waste to be deposited at the main Athens rubbish dump of Ano Liossia, a facility west of the capital.

This project was abandoned under strong protest from the local municipality, which blockaded the dump in June, causing a garbage glut on the streets of the capital that lasted several days.

Residents from the region later marched on the prime minister's state residence and attempted to leave sacks of garbage on his doorstep.

Another plan to transport the sludge to Sudan, widely reported in the Greek press, also did not proceed.

EYDAP on Thursday said it had examined several proposals to dispose of the sludge within Greece, but ran into "strong reactions" from local communities.

"These reactions are expected to escalate with local elections coming up" in October, the company noted.

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