Unauthorized disposal of hazardous waste causes €5.6m damage

An investigator at the criminal police department in Žilina has charged two individuals as well as two legal entities from Tvrdošín district (Zilina region) with the ongoing crime of unauthorized waste management. The accused individuals and legal entities dumped more than 32,000 tonnes of flue-gas dust in an area near a former cattle farm in the villages of Zábiedovo and Hladovka in the Tvrdošín district. The illegal landfill covered more than 6,430 m2. By depositing hazardous waste in a location other than the one designated, they created an illegal landfill for hazardous waste on the land, which resulted in the pollution of a rocky environment and an adverse impact on the landscape. The necessary costs for recovering and disposing of the illegally deposited hazardous waste has been estimated by experts at more than €5.6 million. If found guilty they risk a prison sentence of three to eight years.