ECOLOGISTS WITHOUT BORDERS – register of wild landfills

Country

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Actors involved

social economy organisations, public sector entities, private companies, citizens, universities

Thematic areas of SI

Circular economy and environment

Description

Interesting facts: On average, we only have to walk 400 metres from our schools to the first wild landfill site in Slovenia. According to 2018 data, 230,000 m3 of waste (92 Olympic swimming pools) still remains in the environment. Construction waste accounts for almost half of all waste (41%), followed by bulky waste (17%), municipal waste (15%), organic waste (13%) and hazardous waste (10%), as well as parquet (2%), motor vehicles (2%) and tyres (1%). Waste crime with the highest economic damage – for every €1 invested in controlling fly-tipping and littering, the state gets back up to €5.6. The TPR (Trash Point Report Index) for Slovenia is 63.79, which means that there are more than 63 landfills for every 10 000 individuals. Too much waste still ends up in Slovenia’s landfills, but no one knows how much. In 2009 (when we started with the project), there were only a few academic studies of small areas and an inventory of the Ljubljana Marshes.

Objectives and activities: To create the first nationwide register of wild landfills. To collect detailed data for monitoring purposes and to organise clean-up campaigns. Assess the environmental impact of landfills and enable municipalities to triage remediation.

Our successes: Launched a web-based platform with real-time analytics and notification of urgent notifications. More extensive inventory and data refresh campaigns. With more than 15,000 locations of illegal dumping sites, the Register is still the only database reflecting the state of illegal dumping in our country. Inclusion of phased remediation in the Operational Programme for Waste Management.

https://ebm.si/register-divjih-odlagalisc