Karst pits are water collectors, and if they are polluted, drinking water washes over the waste and goes to our springs and rivers. In Herzegovinian caves, the Speleological Society “Herceg” from Mostar often finds plastic, white goods, carrion, and even cars. In order to point out the importance of preserving pits, they educated the population and prepared a film that talks about the importance of changing awareness and bad habits.
As part of the “Green Network” project, which operates under the auspices of the Embassy of Italy, and which received support from UNDP, members of the Speleological Society “Herceg” from Mostar, together with partners from the Speleological Society “Zelena brda” from Trebinje, are implementing a project which the population is educated about the bad impact of waste in pits.
“For the younger generation, we organized workshops in schools, and at public forums we presented to the wider population. We cleaned two objects above the Trebinje plateau and above the Mostar plateau in Goranci, where we removed five cubic meters of garbage in both pits, i.e. about ten cubic meters in total – Ivan Marić, president of the Speleological Society “Herceg” Mostar,” said in an interview for Fena.
Part of this project was the recording of an educational film, which aims to bring the negative things and impacts brought by waste in pits closer to the population.
“People must be aware that we live in a karst area. Every drop that falls passes through the karst part and drags with it all the substances, both the good ones that are in the water and the bad ones that are in the pits, because things in the pits decompose, especially microplastics,” said Marić.
He points out that the biggest problem is carrion in the pits, because it can seriously pollute the drinking water that we all end up drinking.
“The plateau above Mostar, which is worked by our company, is the plateau that supplies both of our springs in Mostar, that is, the Studenac and Radobolja springs. Unfortunately, so far we have registered 24 facilities that are heavily polluted by various wastes,” he pointed out.
Marić notes that in those pits there are various plastics, white goods, batteries, carrion, and, as he noted, even cars were thrown in.
“Also, during cleaning, we come across mines and explosive devices that create the biggest problem for us speleologists and which are the biggest danger for us,” he noted.
The speleologist believes that the population is very little educated about how badly the underwater waters are affected by throwing waste into pits. Therefore, he adds, during the project they worked on educating young people in schools in order to point out in time the negative impacts of waste in pits.
In the end, he called on the population, especially those living in rural areas, to think when dumping waste in pits because, as Marić said, the carelessness of just one person can damage the source of drinking water for the entire city.
“I hope that the video we have prepared will encourage the population to think and that they will stop their bad habits,” he concluded.
