Kumanovo's Rubbish Ends Up at "Drisla": Villages Block the "Krasta" Landfill over a Fire That, According to the Mayor, Comes Back Every Year

Kumanovo's rubbish ended up in Skopje this week. Residents of Pčinja and the surrounding villages have been blocking the "Krasta" landfill all week and won't let a single truck through, so waste from Kumanovo is temporarily being taken to "Drisla". Mayor Maksim Dimitrievski publicly apologised to residents for the rubbish problem.

The reason for the blockade is well known: fires and constant smouldering, with smoke spreading towards Pčinja, Studena Bara, Vakv and Vince. "We're not ending the blockade until the burning landfill is put out. We think it's a criminal offence to bring new rubbish to a burning landfill that then smokes over the village again," says Stojan Stojkovski, a representative of the residents. And he adds a sentence that tells the whole story: "For six months nothing was done, and after the blockade was announced, they started working."

A fire that breaks out every year

The most candid admission came from the mayor himself. He says that more than seven days ago local residents complained, he asked the public utility "Čistota i Zelenilo" for urgent remediation - and two days later was told the utility didn't have enough technical equipment for the fire, "which breaks out every year". So the fire comes regularly, but the equipment for it never did. In the end, the fire was brought under control only with machinery and trucks of soil provided by private companies.

The municipal protection and rescue headquarters is now asking for "legal measures" to lift the blockade and a police corridor from the Kumanovo regional police for the trucks. Dimitrievski says Kumanovo has no other site where it can legally dispose of waste, and that the permanent solution is a transfer station and a regional waste management system. Until then, he says, the rubbish has to go to "Krasta".

New cameras, old problems

The list of measures is long: covering the waste with soil every day, new CCTV and thermal imaging cameras, stepped-up security, repairs to the fence and an eco-patrol with residents of the four villages that will check the situation once a week. All of it sounds reasonable. The question is why none of these measures existed before the villages stood in front of the trucks.

Dimitrievski thanked Prime Minister Mickoski and Skopje Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski for letting "Drisla" take Kumanovo's rubbish, and mayors Jančev and Gjorgjievski also sent trucks to help with transport. Solidarity between municipalities is good news. But it doesn't solve anything: the problem just moves from one landfill to another.

The regional waste management system is still just a plan, and "Krasta" keeps smouldering in the meantime. How many more blockades will it take for the transfer station to become a building site rather than a sentence in a statement?