Illegal landfill in the Banja Luka settlement of Paprikovac – Impuls
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country rich in beautiful nature, but also with a large number of illegal landfills. The exact number of illegal landfills is unknown, and new ones are being created almost every day. According to the data of the Centers for Civic Initiatives from 2019, there are 1426 illegal landfills in the Federation of BiH, while according to official data from 2011, there are 270 illegal landfills in the Republika Srpska (RS).
Author: Impuls
Based on the collected data, the average specific amount of municipal waste generated in the RS is estimated at about 0.86 kg of municipal waste per capita per day. Experts claim that not enough is being invested in this issue, nor is it being talked about. There are no educational activities on this topic directed towards the population and raising awareness.
Illegal landfills are places where waste is disposed of irregularly. They can most often be seen in forests, along rivers and along roadside. Unscrupulous citizens dump everything in illegal landfills, from household appliances, furniture, animal remains to construction materials.
Inadequate waste disposal leads to soil and groundwater pollution. Wild landfills are rich in hazardous substances such as various types of chemicals from discarded appliances. Whether through precipitation or wind, toxic substances spread beyond the site where the waste is located. During precipitation, harmful substances dissolve from the waste and so the pollution reaches the soil and groundwater and even surface water.
In this way, the health of the inhabitants is directly endangered, and the law does not clearly define the problem of illegal landfills.
The laws regulating waste management in the RS are the Law on Environmental Protection and the Law on Waste Management, which regulates everything related to waste, but does not know the term illegal landfill or deal with this topic at all.
The Criminal Code of the RS does not prescribe a penalty for disposing of individual items, but the law concentrates on the term “to a greater extent and in a wider area“.
1) Whoever, by violating the regulations on protection, preservation and improvement of the environment, pollutes the air, land or water to a greater extent or in a wider area, shall be punished by a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
(2) If as a result of the act referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article there has been destruction or significant damage to forests, plants or other plants in the wider area or the environment is polluted to such an extent that human or animal health is endangered, the perpetrator shall be punished by imprisonment of one up to five years.
(3) If the acts referred to in para. 1 and 2 of this Article, committed negligently, the perpetrator shall be punished for the offense referred to in paragraph 1 by a fine or imprisonment of up to one year, and for the offense referred to in paragraph 2 by a fine or imprisonment of six months to two years.
The criminal law in this case is not clear enough, so waste disposal is treated as a misdemeanor, not a criminal offense, because the terms in the law are unclear.
Competence in solving the problem of illegal landfills and disposal is regulated at the municipal or city level by decisions on communal order, which prescribe misdemeanor sanctions for improper waste disposal, which creates illegal landfills. According to that decision, communal police officer for e.g., improperly disposal of a stove can issue a fine of 100 to 1000 BAM.
When we asked the communal police of the city of Banja Luka, we received the answer that there is no register of illegal landfills in the city area, and that illegal landfills are detected upon citizens’ reports and regular inspections.
“Regular communal-inspection supervision and citizens’ reports are used as a tool to locate places where waste is improperly deposited. After determining the subject locations, an official note and photo-documentation are made, which is forwarded to the Public Hygiene Officer of the Department for Communal Affairs of the City of Banja Luka for competent action. After the landfill is removed and the waste is taken away, the officers of the Communal Police Department are setting up a banning sign on waste disposal,” the communal police informed us.
The question is what to do after the installation of the ban sign and whether the perpetrators are being found and punished.
Wild landfill in the Banja Luka settlement of Paprikovac – Impuls
One gets the impression that the main obstacle in finding the long-term solution of the problem of waste disposal, and especially illegal landfills, is the insufficient care of the authorities. The term illegal landfill is not addressed even in the strategy, nor in the law.
According to the current waste management strategy of the RS Government, there is no way to regulate the problem of illegal landfills. The strategy is, among other things, based on waste reduction, sorting, educating the population and raising awareness about the problem of waste itself.
However, the education of citizens is almost non-existent. Our households still do not have the practice of sorting waste, nor do utility companies offer such services. If they do exist, the waste will end up in the same landfill.
Milica Končar from the Center for the Environment in Banja Luka points out that illegal landfills are one of the major problems for the quality and preservation of the environment in BiH, and that the entire waste management system in BiH is outdated.
“Wild landfills are just an indicator and one of the consequences of a poor waste management system in the country. Wild landfills can be found in almost all areas, and according to official data from 2011, there were 270 of them in RS. In 2021, we can expect a much larger number due to the increased amount of municipal waste, but also weak initiatives for landfill removal and failure to develop alternatives to waste treatment (recycling, composting, etc.).”
According to Končar, waste in nature affects the entire environment.
“After the disposal, the waste reaches the soil, water and air, and under the influence of the sun and precipitation, it decomposes and can pollute the area where it is located for many years. It is especially dangerous to dispose waste near the source, which is very common and pollutes the watercourse downstream. The most important thing is for people to be aware that waste has a lifespan that does not stop if you leave it in nature or in a container. What is worrying is the growing amount of waste produced, which ends up in increasingly buried landfills or in nature.“
Končar further states that it is time to make changes in the waste management system throughout BiH.
“BiH has a system of regional landfills where waste is collected in regional centers. Most regional landfills have certain standards that it adheres to. However, the number of illegal landfills shows that not all waste is stored in landfills. Even in landfills there are various problems. The extreme case is in Mostar, where the city landfill Uborak works illegally, that is without permits, over capacity and without an appropriate wastewater system. This landfill poses a huge danger, especially since it is located next to a populated area. The growing amount of waste requires changes in the system and it is time to start working in a planned and visionary way on the problem of waste, which has its positive side and can be a huge resource, if it is properly managed.“
Based on the collected data, the average specific amount of municipal waste generated in the RS is around 0.86 kg of municipal waste per capita per day (value range from 0.26 kg/st/day to 1.22 kg/st/day, depending on the development of local self-government units and coverage by the waste collection service), i.e., about 316 kg of municipal waste per capita per year. The population of 1,170,342 produces about 369,827 tons of waste per year.
One of the large illegal landfills in Banja Luka is located three kilometers from the city center. After on citizen and reader of the Impulse portal sent photos, which were published in the section Impulse citizen journalism, we visited the mentioned location. Waste from households and production plants was disposed of in several places along the road of several kilometers.
The locals we spoke to state that trucks full of waste dispose it there every day. They are outraged by this practice of unscrupulous citizens and think that with a small investment, a hiking trail could be created in that area.
Project “Informing BiH society on problems and the fight for environmental protection through legislation and examples of civic self-organization” is part of a wider project “Think Nature!” implemented by the Center for Civil Society Promotion, with the financial support of Sweden.
