Zagreb, 5 September 2026 (Hina/MIA) - Representatives of civic initiatives and environmental groups warned at the "Walk for Lika, Walk for Croatia" rally in Zagreb on Saturday that waste problems and environmental hotspots affected numerous parts of Croatia, not just Gospić and the Lika region, and called for systemic change.

Snježana Sužnjević Vago of the "Siščani ne žele biti Smetlišćani" initiative said Sisak had become a city of Croatian and now European waste over the past 30 years, accusing successive political administrations of allowing waste businesses to take over industrial zones without a strategy.

She singled out the "ecological time bomb" of poultry farms near Sisak, saying the project was put on hold after its environmental impact assessment failed, thanks to persistent citizens' objections and pressure on politicians and the ministry.

Grubić: A third of Vranjic residents died of mesothelioma

Mariana Grubić of the "Mjesto koje hoće živjeti" initiative warned about asbestos waste from the former Salonit factory, saying the Vranjic hotspot contained 63,000 cubic meters of hazardous, carcinogenic waste.

Salonit operated from 1921 to 2006, while asbestos causes mesothelioma, an extremely dangerous form of lung cancer, she said.

Vranjic now has about 1,200 residents, while 400 residents had died of mesothelioma, she said, adding that around 20 people were still being treated for the disease.

Ante Gusić of the "Vlajter-ego Benkovac" association said Benkovac was another hotspot, with more than 11,000 cubic meters of microplastics and hazardous waste buried in privately owned quarries about 1,000 meters from a kindergarten and primary school.

Sivka: Zagreb also has “ecological time bombs”

Dora Sivka, president of Green Action, said Zagreb also had "ecological time bombs" that had remained unresolved for decades, stressing that the state was responsible for hazardous waste.

She said the Jakuševec landfill was a "mountain of problems" that activists had been warning about for 30 years, while similar problems existed at legal landfills across Croatia. However, she said, these were not comparable with the imported waste and mafia-style illegal dumping allegedly carried out with the backing of the authorities and state institutions.

"The import and dumping were enabled by the environment minister's signature. The chief state inspector took a bribe and then turned a blind eye, while the prime minister claims he knows nothing," she said, prompting protesters to chant "Thieves!"

Sivka said systemic change could not be expected from those in power and that citizens had to organize and resist with arguments and unity.

Fućak: Where did 100,000 cubic meters of waste go?

Irena Burba of Green Istria said all parts of Croatia shared invaluable natural resources but also thousands of tons of illegally dumped or buried waste, an inefficient waste-management system, ineffective inspection services and violations of the law without consequences.

She said 13,000 tons of waste illegally brought from Italy in 2020 was still stored at the former Istraplastika plant in Pazin.

"The system only reacts when a disaster occurs instead of preventing it. Citizens should not have to act as detectives for years to prove there is an ecological time bomb, breathe in foul odors and fear for their drinking water," she said.

Željko Fućak of the "Rijeka za ljubav" initiative said 250,000 cubic meters of acidic sludge, tar, waste and engine oils, petroleum-product residues and other liquid waste had been dumped into a pit near Rijeka over 44 years.

Although a clean-up had been promised and EU funding secured in 2018, the project was supposed to be completed this year but the contract was terminated over delays and an EPPO investigation into alleged irregularities linked to the remediation.

Fućak also questioned discrepancies in estimates of the amount of waste, asking where 100,000 cubic meters had gone. Such a volume of hazardous liquid waste in karst terrain was not merely a figure on paper but a permanent threat to groundwater and the environment, he said.

"Every government is only as good as the people make it"

Ante Tešija of the "Zdravi Split" initiative called for all future waste-related decisions and legislation to serve current and future generations, and for those responsible for wrongdoing to compensate for all damage with their own assets.

He asked whether authorities would allow "the trenches of our defenders to be filled with other people's waste" and Croatian soil "soaked in the blood of defenders" to be mixed with liquid poison from elsewhere.

Tešija said every government was only as good as the pressure people put on it, and every bad government was as bad as people allowed it to be.

"You will hear many questions from this rally; it is up to you to answer them," he told those responsible.

Ivo Lorencin of the "Čist zrak duga ljubav" initiative from Medulin spoke about problems in southern Istria, saying the air had not been clean for eight years since the Kaštijun waste-treatment plant was built. After eight years without any improvement, he said, the only solution was to close Kaštijun.

Karst terrain unsuitable for landfills

Karstologist, journalist and activist Ivo Lučić said Croatia had led efforts 15 years ago to obstruct a UNESCO proposal to put the Dinaric karst on the World Heritage List, despite karst fields being among the country's greatest natural assets.

Because karst is porous, no landfills should be built there, he said, noting that Slovenia therefore bans landfills on fractured, water-permeable karst terrain, while Croatia had introduced "micro-zoning" that allows landfills to be built almost anywhere.

"No one can claim that the Gospić landfill will not endanger ecosystems and human health, because no one can know that," Lučić said, adding that once pollution began, it would not return to its source, regardless of what the Andrija Štampar public health institute said.

While the authorities bore the greatest responsibility for the situation, Lučić said, other sectors were not blameless either, particularly science.