Consequences of bad privatization of the former BH industrial giants were mostly reflected in disenfranchised workers. That it can get worse is shown by the example of the shutdown of several factories of the Chlor-Alkali Combine (HAK) in 2007. Then, in addition to the workers, large amounts of hazardous waste remained on the street, which even after so many years could have a harmful effect on human health and the environment. Official data indicate that it is 1,750 tons of crux. But the crux is not the only problem.
According to the claims of former workers, in addition to crux, there are also unspecified amounts of other dangerous substances that were improperly stored in the company of the former industrial giants. However, what is good news at the moment is that two million marks have been allocated from the budget of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the removal and rehabilitation of the crux landfill, which is one of the biggest environmental problems in this area. There are several methods by which this problem could be solved, and it is important to choose the right one.
In the place of the former industrial giants in Tuzla, today there are grass, ruins and large amounts of hazardous waste, which practically represents an ecological bomb. Everything used to be different.
“Only a madman can destroy a giant like this. A giant that once employed 1,100 people. If we multiply that by four family members – about five thousand people lived from this complex. “All this was purposefully and purposefully destroyed by someone for the sake of personal, party, tycoon and other interests”, says former employee of HAK Sakib Kopić.
Due to the shutdown of the former industrial facilities and, as the workers state, bad privatization, the hazardous materials used in production were not properly destroyed or stored according to regulations. Crux is not the only problem.
“You have ethylene, propylene, chlorine, mercury, all of that is dangerous and all of these flammable and explosive substances were left without the supervision of experts,” Kopić points out.
Along with the governing structures that work through various projects to solve the problem of destruction or removal of waste, the activists of the “Earth – Water – Air” Platform have been warning the same authorities for years about a problem that could escalate.
“The problem is propylene dioxide, 47 tons of propylene dioxide, which is highly carcinogenic and highly flammable,” warns prof. Damir Arsenijević, founder of the “Earth – Air – Water” platform.
Hazardous waste in the industrial area is not only in one place, and all flammable and health-threatening materials know neither temporal nor geographical boundaries, warns the Platform “Earth – Water – Air”.
“We are fighting against time, but we are trying in every way to work with the community to discover the places where waste is hidden and to lobby at all levels of government so that this waste is removed safely for the population,” points out Arsenijević.
The public’s fear of hazardous waste still exists:
“We people from Tuzla have always been afraid of it and feared it. There were articles and it was commented that cancers were appearing.”
“If we remember the chlorine leak in ’79. Or ’80, escapes and all that, horror!”
“Has it not been removed and resolved yet? They will strangle us all, as was the case when we fled to Majevica.”
The process of detecting and removing hazardous waste is lengthy, especially since hazardous waste is improperly stored. There are several methods by which the waste could be destroyed with funds provided by the Government of the Federation. One of them is physical-chemical treatment.
“It is the only method that takes place on site, at the landfill itself, where physical and chemical treatments turn that waste material into solid waste, which receives a different code according to the classification of hazardous material, where it goes from hazardous to non-hazardous,” explains Anela Ajšić, Minister of Spatial Planning and Environmental Protection of Tuzla Canton.
However, environmental associations do not agree with this method of destruction, since they consider neutralized crux to be still dangerous. Another method is transportation to one of the landfills abroad, which is more complicated and requires additional funds. What is certain and what citizens expect is that this problem will be solved and that some other interests do not prevail over their own health and clean environment.
