The problem of waste disposal sites

Romania risks sanctions by the European Commission over its waste management plan

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Mihai Pelin, 05.10.2017, 13:37

In April, the European Commission took Romania to the Court of Justice of the EU for failing to review and adopt its national waste management plan and waste prevention programme. One month later, the Commission began infringement procedures against 14 EU member states, including Romania, for failing to comply with their obligations with respect to the implementation of a number of EU waste management norms. The list of countries also includes France, Italy, the UK, Spain, Holland and Sweden.

Despite warnings from Brussels, Romania has not done much to address the situation. The problems are still there and now Romania is trying to prove that it is aware of the importance of closing the non-conforming sites.

The environment minister Gratiela Gavrilescu has recently visited the countrys first hazardous industrial waste disposal site in Sibiu County, in the centre, which was closed in August, in keeping with the requirements of the European Commission. For two decades, between 1974 and 1994, this site collected over 60,000 tonnes of hazardous waste produced in the Medias area. The environment minister hailed the closing of the site as an example for how to solve the problem of non-conforming disposal sites that has earned Romania its infringement procedure from the European Commission:

Gratiela Gavrilescu: “The economic operator has fulfilled all its environmental obligations and has closed the site in keeping with the law in force. We have already applied for the removal of the disposal site in Tarnava from the infringement procedure list.

Gratiela Gavrilescu also pointed out that there are 49 such sites in Romania, of which only 4 or 5 can be closed by the end of the year. If Romania loses the case at the Court of Justice of the EU over its non-conforming waste disposal sites, it will have to pay huge penalties of up to 100,000 euros a day.

But there are other problems as well connected to these sites. On Wednesday, the fire services managed with difficulty to put out a fire that broke out at the temporary waste disposal facility of Cluj Napoca, a city in the north-west. A similar incident also occurred last year. The facility opened in 2015 following the closing of the citys old, non-conforming site. At the moment, this old facility also raises certain environmental questions due to the formation in the area of a lake full of leachate, a toxic substance resulting from the decomposition of waste, and the fact that certain substances exceed the legal limit.

(translated by: Cristina Mateescu)