For several years now, there has been a story that the citizens of Tuzla live next to a carcinogenic landfill, and a team of experts has officially confirmed the existence of extremely large quantities of hazardous waste in the industrial zone.
Apart from the main products, the chemical industry in Tuzla has been generating hazardous waste for years, which has not been properly disposed of. For decades, chemicals were stored in the ground, but also on its soil, and to officially determine its quantity, the excavation of one of the landfills located within the former HAK II company began two weeks ago.
The line cantonal ministry presented the results of a geological survey of soil testing for the purpose of locating a dangerous crux landfill in the Tuzla industrial zone, and the information is worrying. A team of experts determined the exact location of the landfill in the irregular shape of a triangle, with an area of 800 to 1.000 square meters.
“The research established that the crux is at a depth of half to three and a half meters, and the total volume is from 1.200 to 1.500 cubic meters. After laboratory analysis, we determined the bulk density of the crux, which differs in bulk and compacted in barrels, and the average is 1.135 kilograms per cubic meter. It is important to note that the total amount is between 1.370 and 1.750 tons, and I hoped that it would be less, ” told Zvjezdan Karadzin, Minister of Spatial Planning and Environmental Protection of Tuzla Canton (TC).
Samples of the first substances found were sent for analysis to the Eurofins laboratory in Zagreb, and according to the number under which the crux was registered, it was waste generated from organic and chemical processes or the rest of the reactions and distillations.
Karadzin stated that the chemical analysis, along with the crux, also showed the increased amounts of chlorine in the amount of three percent, due to which the incineration of hazardous waste will not be possible in the incinerator of the Cement Factory in Lukavac.
“When burning in cement plants, the limit amounts of chlorine can be between 0.7 and 0.8 percent. We will also give the local company TQM to examine the composition of some other samples, which is important for us to determine the extent to which the chlorine is dangerous, for which we know that is toxic, corrosive, and carcinogenic,” pointed out Karadzin, emphasizing that besides chlorine, heavy metals in increased content, such as chromium, lead, and nickel, were found at the mentioned landfill, and they were marked as toxic and carcinogenic, Klix.ba reports.
