Macedonia is facing an environmental time bomb: Jegunovce holds 7,000 tonnes of dangerous hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. One gram can contaminate 100,000 litres of water.

Professor Zlatko Ilijoeski provided a striking comparison: "If we decided to load the hazardous waste into trucks, we would need 100,000 trucks - that would be a convoy reaching to northern Sweden." Total landfill material amounts to 1.1 million cubic metres.

Scientist Trajče Stafilov warned that contaminated water is already flowing into the Vardar river. The 7,000 tonnes could theoretically contaminate water equivalent to twelve Lake Ohrid volumes.