Waste transfer is allowed in all European countries, but only for recovery.
In Romania, both the local and the national press have recently reported that hundreds of waste containers have arrived in the country both by river and by road.
As a consequence, Romania has reached an alarming level of accumulated waste. These waste containers that have arrived in our country are non-compliant, and they cannot be recovered.
Why we ended up in this situation:
- Neutralization of waste costs up to 500 euros in Europe, while in our country if the garbage ends up in a landfill it costs 50 euros.
- We import some hazardous or difficult to neutralize waste.
- We produce waste on an industrial scale that is difficult to neutralize, as long as is not sorted initially by citizens and then be doubled by town halls.
- There are border pressures on waste imports, and they are encouraged by the obvious systemic corruption in Romania.
- We do not have scanners to see what is in every container that enters the country – only in the Port of Constanţa we find such a device, but it is very old.
Considering the gravity of this situation regarding non-compliant waste in Romania, we addressed some questions to the competent authorities (DIICOT, ENVIRONMENTAL GUARD through Constanţa County Commissariat, COAST GUARD) regarding the origin of illegal waste containers found, non-compliant waste quantities, investigation stage etc. We present the current situation as it was communicated to us by the authorities.
COAST GUARD
As a result of the controls performed by the COAST GUARD, the following emerged:
Coast Guard Controls – Interpellations Authorities Non-compliant waste containers _EN
Remarks
- Large quantities of non-compliant waste came in 2021 from Europe (8 countries), Asia (4 countries), North America (one country), Australia (one country)
- In just the first decade of 2021 – GERMANY, BULGARIA and BELGIUM were in the lead
- Most tons of waste come from European Union countries
ENVIRONMENTAL GUARD – CONSTANŢA COUNTY COMMISSIONER
As a result of the controls performed by the ENVIRONMENTAL GUARD through the Constanţa County Commissariat, it emerged:
Environmental Guard Controls – Interpellations Authorities Non-compliant waste containers _EN
Remarks
- Large quantities of non-compliant waste came in 2021 from Europe (5 countries), Asia (one country), North America (one country)
- In just the first decade of 2021 – GERMANY, BULGARIA and SLOVENIA were in the lead
- Most tons of waste come from European Union countries
It is noteworthy that the answers provided by the ENVIRONMENTAL GUARD through the Constanţa County Commissariat and the COASTAL GUARD are largely different, which means that in less than half a year in Romania over 5,000 tons of non-compliant waste were found.
DIRECTORATE OF INVESTIGATION OF ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM CRIMES (DIICOT)
Regarding the non-compliant waste stored in the containers from the Port of Constanța, we also questioned the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism.
In this sense, I was informed that on the role of DIICOT – Central Structure is registered a criminal case in which investigations are carried out for the crimes of forming an organized criminal group, qualified smuggling, in continuous form, the use of forged documents, in continuous form , the use of unreal acts, in continuous form and deception, in continuous form. This case is not resolved until this date and for this reason I could not be given more details.
Full correspondence:
- 20.05.2021: Interpellation addressed to the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (read the document)
- 06.07.2021: Response from the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (read the document)
- 20.05.2021: Interpellation addressed to the Coast Guard (read the document)
- 16.06.2021: Response from the Coast Guard (read the document)
- 20.05.2021: Interpellation addressed to the National Environmental Guard, Constanţa County Commissariat (read the document)
- 11.06.2021: Response from the National Environmental Guard, Constanţa County Commissariat (read the document)
- 22.06.2021: Comeback 1 of the interpellation to the National Environmental Guard, Constanţa County Commissariat (read the document)
- 09.07.2021: Comeback 1 response from the National Environmental Guard, Constanţa County Commissariat (read the document)
- 21.06.2021: Comeback 2 of the interpellation to the National Environmental Guard, Constanţa County Commissariat (read the document)
- 30.07.2021: Comeback 2 response from the National Environmental Guard, Constanţa County Commissariat (read the document)
