The Landfill near Arachinovo Is Still Smouldering - and the Institutions Keep Passing the Buck

The fire at the illegal landfill near Arachinovo broke out on 10 October. It was quickly contained, it has rained since - and the remains are still smouldering. The smoke is drifting towards Skopje, and the people breathing it are getting something almost better documented than the fire itself: a list of institutions that aren't responsible.

Everyone passes it on to someone else

The Levica party describes the route every complaint takes. Residents report smoke, a burning sensation in their throats and noses, and watering eyes. The Crisis Management Centre, according to the party, tells them to go to the media. The municipality refers them to the public utility company, and the company says it has reported the case. "They're negotiating whose jurisdiction it is, and in the meantime we're breathing poison," the party says.

The Ministry of Environment, the State Environmental Inspectorate and Arachinovo municipality were asked whether air quality had been measured and whether anyone is establishing responsibility. Answers were expected during the day. Days after the fire, in other words, people still don't know what they're breathing - only that it's smoke.

The Green Humane City party is demanding that the fire be put out immediately, the methane vented, the landfill fenced off, and the utility services that dump waste there sanctioned and stripped of their waste management licences - "if they even have one".

Only three licensed landfills

That "if they even have one" isn't rhetoric. According to the Ministry of Environment, only three landfills in the country hold a licence under the Law on Landfilling: Drisla, and the landfills in Gevgelija and Gostivar. Everything else runs on someone's decision, habit or silence.

Nor is this Arachinovo's first time in this role - there were smoke problems at the site earlier this year too. Meanwhile, Kumanovo's "Krasta" landfill, which according to the DOM party has been burning for six months and is used on the municipality's decision without a ministry licence, has turned into a full-blown municipal crisis. Residents of Pchinja and Studena Bara blocked it over the constant smoke, and Kumanovo had to temporarily haul its rubbish to Skopje's Drisla. The blockade was lifted on 12 October, after the fire was put out and part of the waste was buried under soil.

Burying it under soil hides the problem from view. It doesn't solve it.

Europe is aiming for 10%

For years, data from the State Statistical Office has shown that 99.8% of collected municipal waste in Macedonia ends up in landfills. The European Union, meanwhile, requires member states to cut landfilling to no more than 10% of municipal waste generated by 2035. According to the European Environment Agency, the amount of municipal waste generated in Macedonia rose by 21.6% between 2010 and 2023, while recycling and composting capacity remains limited.

In its 2025 report, the European Commission found that waste management remains a serious challenge: regional systems aren't working as intended, and modern regional infrastructure keeps running late. The regional landfill near Sveti Nikole, DOM reminds us, has still not been built.

It's a system in which the bins get emptied but the problem doesn't go away - it just moves to the hill behind the village, where one day it will catch fire. How many more illegal dumps have to start smoking before someone answers for the fact that they exist at all?