The Supreme Court of Republic Srpska will decide, at the request of Center for Environment, on the fate of the project for chemical-thermal waste treatment in Vlasenica. It is a project of the company “Ecoplast” from Vlasenica, which plans to import over 100,000 tons of plastic waste annually in Republic of Srpska for their needs. The director and one of the owners of “Ecoplast” is Mićo Kraljević, the mayor of the Municipality of Vlasenica.
Namely, during 2020, “Ecoplast” requested from Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology of Republic Srpska to approve an environmental impact assessment study of the planned project. Preparation of the study is a legal obligation, to determine the current state of the environment, the impacts of the project on the environment and the possibilities of reducing these impacts.
The environmental assessment study, its draft, as well as its final version – are riddled with irregularities, and are not aligned with either the Law on Environmental Protection or with the Law on Waste Management. Despite this, the Ministry in charge approved this Study in December 2021.
After that, Center for Environment requested from the District Court in Banja Luka to annul this decision, but the court refused, ignoring in its verdict from November 2022 numerous shortcomings of the Study and the decision.
Center has now submitted a request to the Supreme Court for its extraordinary review against the District Court’s verdict. The request to the Supreme Court pointed out legal obligations that were not complied with during the preparation of the Study.
The public was not allowed to comment on the final version of the Study, because the competent Ministry did not allow full public participation in the procedure. Local community voice on the Draft of the Study was expressed primarily by the employees of the Municipality of Vlasenica, whose major is also the director and one of the owners of the company that plans to build the facility for waste. They expressed themselves in the premises of the municipality, during covid pandemic, during which gathering restrictions were imposed on the public. Also, the head of the municipal department whose appointment and dismissal is also in the hands of the mayor – gave a positive opinion on the Study.
Seeing a conflict of interest in all of this, Center for Environment also took the matter to the Commission for determining conflicts of interest in the authorities of the Republikc Srpska. An initiative was submitted to the Commission to determine whether Mićo Kraljević is in a conflict of interest in relation to this procedure, as a mayor of the Municipality of Vlasenica on one hand, and the director and one of the owners of “Ecoplast” on the other hand.
The main concern in a project of this type is the pollution that occurs during the treatment of plastic. Carcinogenic substances produced by thermal processing of plastics, dioxins and furans, can end up in water, air and soil. Fears of this happening cannot be removed by the flawed Study, as accepted by both the Ministry and the District Court. In addition, they even accepted the use of the Polish language in the Study – unknown to both the participants in the proceedings and the court – forgetting that Polish, at least as far as we know, is not an official language in Republic Srpska.
The impact of the facility on the existing significant pollution of the land at that location is also unclear, and the impact on the surrounding waters has not been elaborated either. The current state of air pollution, on the other hand, is based on the measurement of air quality during only three consecutive days, although averages for the whole year would have to be determined, since air quality naturally varies throughout the year.
The study tries to dispel doubts about the harmful impact on the environment with unsubstantiated and contradictory claims that no harmful emissions are expected, but also that the facility has certain filters and protections that prevent harmful emissions. It is not explained what those filters and protections protect against, if no emissions are expected, and no details are given about the mode of operation, quality and efficiency of the filters.
The study, therefore, neither proved that there will be no harmful emissions, nor did it fully and correctly determine the current state of the environment, so it will not be possible to reliably monitor how much the planned facility really affects the environment. Any subsequent work supervision will therefore represent a completely ineffective protection of the environment.
In addition, the Law on Waste Management prohibits the import of waste into Republic Srpska for disposal and use for energy purposes, although the import of non-hazardous waste for treatment is permitted. The investor is therefore trying to use a technicality to justify the import of 100,000 tons of plastic waste into Republic Srpska, claiming that the waste will not be imported for disposal and used for energy purposes, but for treatment (incinerating). However, the investor himself admits that this “treatment” produces polymer wax and waste ash, as well as that a small part of the wax will be exported to Poland, while the rest will be placed on the domestic market, and all the waste will be disposed of in Republic Srpska.
“In the last decade, more and more analyses have been done and knowledge about the harmfulness of various technologies that perform chemical and thermal treatment of waste has increased, which is why the EU imposes greater and greater restrictions on technologies of that type.” It could have been expected that these technologies would come to us, where there is no knowledge of the dangers they represent, as well as mechanisms for monitoring pollution and protection of citizens and the environment. We hope that in this process, the competent authorities will understand the danger of such projects and be aware that they should not be taken lightly,” says Milica Končar from Center for Environment.
Lawyer Dragana Stanković, who represents Center in this dispute, points out that “protecting the environment, the legislator prohibited the import of waste into Republic Srpska for disposal and use for energy purposes, and prescribed the principle of minimizing waste generation. However, in this case Ministry favours the import of waste and the subsequent disposal of waste obtained from the treatment of that imported waste, easily passing over the fact that this will create waste in Republic Srpska that did previously not exist in it. The Court reinforces the Study, justifying it by asserting that only in the process of issuing the environmental permit, which will follow, will it be determined what impact the construction of this facility has on the environment, and whether it is justified to build that facility from an environmental point of view. This approach loses sight of the justification of the facility from an ecological aspect that should be assessed already when approving the Study, because the law clearly stipulates that if the project can have a significant harmful effect on the environment or threaten it to a significant extent, the Study cannot be approved at all. I believe that the Supreme Court will make the right decision, fully in accordance with the highest constitutional guarantees for a healthy environment, but also that it will protect the right of the prosecutor and the public to fully participate in this procedure”.
Center for Environment will inform the public about the decision of the Supreme Court in a timely manner. We hope that it will not come too late, but before the facility in Vlasenica starts operating, which very worrying impact on the environment is wider than the local community itself.