ELBASAN, April 30 – Albanian authorities have filed charges against Kurum, a Turkish company operating Albania’s largest steel-making plant, for illegally dumping toxic waste.
Police in the central city of Elbasan accuse the company of polluting surrounding water and air and for “transportation of toxic materials.”
The steelmaker has always been under focus for pollution, and it operates in an area that has always been considered as the most polluted in the country due to the old technology in the industry used since the communist era.
The mill has partially privatized through Kurum a few years ago and it has since often been accused of not using a proper filtering system and dumping pollution into the air.
A recent investigation by a civil society organization showed that hazardous waste was also dumped illegally on the banks of the Shkumbin River, creating a mountain of slag and garbage 200 meters wide and about 20 meters high.
Earlier this month, Albania’s Environmental Inspectorate, ISHM, suspended the steelmaker’s work and ordered the plant to stop operations. It found that the company generated about 48,000 tons of metal slag waste every year, including zinc oxide and lead dust.
The company has no waste management plan and has been dumping its waste on the banks of Shkumbin near the village of Bradashesh for years, the investigation revealed.
Authorities have told Kurum to have a proper waste management plan by May 20 and also bring a plan to clean up and rehabilitate the dump site on the Shkumbin River if it wants to restart its operations.
