A large-scale demonstration took place in Zagreb on Tuesday, with tens of thousands of citizens gathering to protest the Croatian government’s handling of illegal toxic waste sites. The protesters blamed officials for failing to act on the pollution crisis, carrying signs that read “ecocide equals slow genocide” and “halt waste import” while waving Croatian flags.<\/p>\n
The demonstration was triggered by revelations that a landfill near the town of Gospi\u0107, approximately 200 kilometers southwest of the capital, has been used to store hazardous materials from multiple European nations, including Germany and Italy. Attendees called for the immediate closure of all illegal landfills due to groundwater contamination and demanded a comprehensive national waste management plan within 20 days, alongside a temporary ban on waste imports.<\/p>\n
Authorities launched an investigation into the illegal dumps following the arrest of 13 individuals in February 2025. Europol confirmed its cooperation with Croatian prosecutors, noting that four companies are also under scrutiny. According to Europol data, the operation generated approximately \u20ac4 million ($4.6 million) in profit for the suspects, who allegedly forged documents to pass off plastic waste as recyclable material.<\/p>\n
While Europol estimates that 35,000 tons of waste\u2014primarily from Italy, as well as Slovenia and Germany\u2014were involved, local environmental activists dispute this figure, claiming that 37,000 tons were illegally dumped at the Gospi\u0107 site alone. The waste reportedly included plastic refuse and toxic hospital waste.<\/p>\n
In August, prosecutors released a report confirming soil contamination at the Gospi\u0107 site, warning that the pollution had spread beyond the original location. Health authorities described the situation as posing a “significant risk for the environment and people’s health,” although they noted that drinking water in Gospi\u0107 remains unaffected for now.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has pledged that the toxic waste site in Gospi\u0107 will be covered by mid-October before removal efforts begin. The government continues to face pressure to resolve the long-standing environmental and public health crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thousands of protesters gathered in Zagreb to demand the Croatian government address the illegal dumping of toxic waste near Gospi\u0107.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2169,326,67,1865,2170,10],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","tag-croatia","tag-environment","tag-germany","tag-protest","tag-toxic-waste","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}