During the floods of 2014 near Šabac, there was a danger of drowning waste end up in Sava. As "Vreme" writes in the current issue, in June of last year, the Krivelj river brought mineral material from the tailings and flooded the surrounding gardens. Earth has become poisoned under such water and the locals can no longer grow food on it, and they are not even allowed to put a flower that grew on that land in a vase.
The examples are endless, but how is the disposal and treatment of hazardous waste regulated in Serbia?
International expert on the environment and energy, Dušan Vasiljević, told Vreme that the main problem in Serbia is that although the state has undertaken to organize a hazardous waste storage facility on its territory, that storage facility does not exist, so it was accepted as a temporary solution. that all generators of hazardous waste, until they hand over to an operator, store the waste in the area of the factory or the place where that waste is generated. This also applies to industrial waste.
"The whole system is unfinished and sketchy because there is no hazardous waste treatment facility in Serbia. Exceptions are accumulators, and partially so, as well as industrial sludges that can be inertized or processed. This waste is mostly exported," says Vasiljević.
However, what happens to the waste that is not exported and cannot be treated, Vasiljević indicates that the only thing left is to store that waste and keep it until further notice because there is no way to treat it.
Aleksandar Jovović, a professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade, told "Vreme" that the problem in Serbia was never the existence of regulations, but compliance with them.
"There is a law on waste management that states that waste should no longer be disposed of in landfills without specific treatment, so you can see that municipal waste also ends up in landfills that are being built, and that it is again collected in a pile, without separation and without any further treatment." , emphasizes Vasiljević.
He adds that environmental law enforcement is always good in the long run, and politicians tend to look at what's good in the short term to avoid confusing their voters, and that may be more obvious now than it was before.
Necessary capacities for recycling
For Vreme, Dejan Milošević from the association "Prvi prvi na skali" recalls the inspector's statement from six to seven years ago about the illegal burying and disposal of hazardous waste instead of proper disposal in Bela Crkva, Obrenovac, Novi Sad, Pančevo, Bavanište and says: In order for the situation to be under control and without risk, it is necessary for our country to have sufficient capacity for recycling, but also to strengthen inspection supervision. When there is no such thing, we have soil, water and even air pollution."
Milošević also cites data that according to the Report on the State of the Environment in Serbia for 2020 of the Republic Institute of Statistics, there were 15,8 million tons of hazardous waste, of which 15,7 million tons were mining waste, and 68.000 tons industrial waste. In the total generated 66 million tons, the share of mining waste was 53 million tons.
However, he says that Serbia is without reliable data on who produces hazardous waste, how much waste is produced, how much is treated, what are the capacities for treatment - "this was established by the State Audit Institution in the audit report 'Management of hazardous waste'. "It was established that at least 20 companies that generate mining waste do not have a permit for waste management," Milošević said.
And Vasiljević claims that the basic problem in Serbia is that it is not known exactly what amounts of hazardous waste exist, where they are generated, how they move and where they end up.
"That record system is not good enough because the generators themselves report what kind of waste they have, how much they have, what category it is, and mistakes often happen, whether these quantities are correct or not, and this cannot be checked because the inspection small, not enough people. When you look at the tables of generated quantities of hazardous waste, they change from year to year and have no constant growth or decline, but one year 80.000 tons, the next 50.000 tons..," says Vasiljević and adds that it is difficult to establish a management system for anything if there are no precise data on what is being managed.
Citizens also have a problem.
The law regulates, Milošević reminds, that households are also obliged to dispose of their waste in containers or in other ways, which are provided by the local self-government unit, and hazardous household waste (waste batteries and accumulators, oils, paints and varnishes, pesticides and others) to handed over to household waste collection centers or to an authorized legal entity for the collection of hazardous waste.
He appeals to be conscientious citizens - if anyone has doubts, to contact the local authorities, the public utility company and ask for more information on waste disposal, so that the waste does not end up in the environment.
Jovović explains that in some cities there are small recycling centers, so-called recycling yards, and these are locations where citizens can take hazardous waste so that they don't throw it in containers.
"That doesn't work in Serbia." "Maybe there is something else on Ada Huja, but as soon as it is not convenient, and that does not mean that it has to be in every street, then it does not work," says Jovović.
Finally, Serbia will become an example, Milošević concludes, when we discipline ourselves as citizens and as decision-makers, and until then "we will live in the daily risks of waste, dangerous and every other".
And Jovović also says that citizens should be reminded that without primary separation of any waste, there will be no serious management of it.
