Some 300 tons of garbage that was illegally imported from Italy and disposed of in the northwestern town of Drvar still represents a danger for the health of locals and authorities at higher government levels refuse to resolve the issue although they are the source of the problem, Drvar municipal mayor Dusica Runic said at a press conference on Thursday.
The Italian waste was imported during the night amid the coronavirus pandemic, with permits from all levels of government there is no recycling plant in Canton 10.
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Runic said the case shows “all the administrative shortcomings and unwillingness of the state to help local governments to protect themselves from individuals who are prepared to endanger the health of citizens for the sake of their personal interests.”
Krom Reciklaza, the company that imported Italian garbage, was by mistake registered at the address of the municipality of Drvar, Runic said. She explained said that there are no machines for recycling at the site although they were listed in the permit, that the company in question does not have any registered employees and that authorities failed to hire an expert to assess this kind of operation although they were obliged to do so.
“The democratic battle that we started peacefully with protests in early July was prevented due to the ban on gatherings, but we continued the administrative battle,” she said, adding that the number of coronavirus cases has increased while there is “300 tons of waste, which was imported from Padua, the Italian region with the most coronavirus cases, evaporating near the Health Center.”
Runic argued that all of this is stated in a document local authorities sent to the relevant ministries and institutions in early July and that the Canton 10 Assembly also discussed the issue, but that it did not produce any results. There was no majority in the assembly for the demand to remove the waste from the site.
She said she also submitted a request to the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office to initiate an investigation into the decision to bring the waste there and that she was told that there is already an investigation ongoing but that details about it can not be released to the public.
She also said she filed a criminal complaint against the former director and one of the owners of the “phantom company.”
The Mayor of Bosansko Grahovo, Milorad Gligic, appealed to all institutions to get involved in solving this problem, saying that the local community does not have the mechanisms needed to resolve it and to bring those responsible to justice.
