The waste disposal issue in Bosnia's southern city of Mostar is slowly escalating after authorities failed to meet the demand of two neighbourhoods' residents for the relocation of a landfill near their homes.
The City Mayor and representatives of the citizens inhabiting the area around the Uborak landfill did not reach an agreement on Monday, the eighth day after the citizens start blocking the landfill. Instead of the solution the citizens asked for, the city authorities offered that suspicious waste, waste of animal and medical origin are no longer disposed on the site.
The citizens rejected the proposal as their main request, to have the landfill completely relocated somewhere else within a one-year period, was not met.
Omer Hujdur, one of the citizens, said following the meeting with the mayor that all their demands were on the table but citizens could not accept what the city authorities offered them.
Hundreds of locals have been keeping blocked two gates of the landfill after they learned that six tons of hazardous waste was allegedly transported near their homes.
The decision not to allow further waste disposal resulted in loads of waste spilling over trash containers in the city, threatening Mostar with an ecological catastrophe.
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A local activist, Marin Bago, representing ‘Our society’ network, warned that the situation is slowly getting out of control.
“No institution has reacted to the information on a huge amount of toxins. There is a huge number of those suffering from tumours,” he said, suggesting that the suspicious waste might be the reason for that.
