Visegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina (AP) — Dejan Furtula sighed in despair as he watched construction machinery working around the clock to clear mountains of trash from the Drina River near his hometown of Visegrad in eastern Bosnia.
The environmental activist is frustrated because the problem is not new. Every winter, garbage carried by the region’s swollen rivers accumulates downstream, eventually piling up next to a barrier installed at a hydroelectric power plant in Visegrád.
“This is a clear example of lack of political will and inaction by all agencies involved,” said Futura, who heads the environmental group Eko Centar. “Year after year they meet and make commitments, but we can see these scenarios repeated over and over again.”
The sight was reminiscent of scenes from environmental disaster movies – the otherwise emerald river surface was thickly covered with plastic bottles, wood or furniture, rusty barrels, household appliances and even dead animals. Furtura said medical waste is also there.
“This is an ecological disaster,” he said. “The Drina River is full of fish and you can imagine the toxins released here, almost everything, it’s a catastrophe.”
The waste comes from illegal dumping sites in upper Bosnia and neighboring Serbia and Montenegro. Several smaller tributaries from the area flow into the Drina, all carrying their own waste.
In summer, the river is popular with rafters and nature lovers. The garbage problem reaches its peak in winter, when river waters rise and wash away illegal dumps along the banks.
Officials from the three countries pledged to work together to resolve the issue. The environment ministers of Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro held one such meeting at the site in 2019, but a few years later no solution seems to have been found.
The situation shows that, decades after the former Yugoslavia’s devastating war in the 1990s, the region lags behind the rest of Europe both economically and environmentally.
In addition to river pollution, many countries in the Western Balkans face other environmental problems. One of the most pressing issues is the extremely high levels of air pollution affecting many cities in the region.
Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro all want to join the EU. Solving environmental protection issues is a key condition for joining the G27.
Furtura said there are a number of possibilities for solving the garbage problem, including mapping illegal garbage dumps and installing cameras and barriers in several cities, rather than having all garbage transported to Visegrád.
When trash is pulled out, it ends up in local landfills, where it slowly burns and releases toxic particles into the air, which Furtura describes as a “vicious cycle” that pollutes his town.
“It comes from three countries – Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia,” he said. “But no one will admit it’s theirs.”