Drina River in Bosnia clogged by waste

Описание: (20 Jan 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Visegrad - 20 January 2023
1. Various of Drina River, garbage floating on river ++PART MUTE++
2. Environmental activist from environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad Dejan Furtula standing on riverbank
3. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Dejan Furtula, activist from environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad:
“As you can see, the garbage keeps arriving. In recent days, we had a lot of rainfall and floods (across the Western Balkans), a huge inflow of water from (the Drina’s tributaries in) Montenegro which is now, fortunately, subsiding. Unfortunately, the inflow of garbage has not ceased.”
4. Garbage behind barrier in river
5. Garbage clogging river
6. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Dejan Furtula, activist from environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad:
“Through no fault of our own, the Visegrad municipality has turned into a regional waste site. We get no compensation for clearing this waste. The fires on (Visegrad’s) municipal landfill site are always burning. This is a huge problem.”
7. Plastic waste accumulated behind trash barrier in river
8. Large pieces of driftwood floating in river
9. Wide of river, barrier clogged with waste
10. Plastic waste scattered on riverbank
11. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Dejan Furtula, activist from environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad:
“The solution exists, we must urgently register all illegal garbage dump sites on the banks of our rivers. This is not just a huge environmental and health hazard but also a big embarrassment for all of us.”
12. Pile of rubbish clogging river held back by trash barrier
13. Large tree branches mixed in with plastic garbage
14. Rubbish scattered on riverbank
15. Dog sniffing around rubbish scattered on riverbank
16. Men followed by dog walking to the edge of river
17. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Rados Brekalovic, resident:
“People need to wake up for problems like this. This is a serious problem. If garbage accumulates at the edge of the city it can easily cause diseases and other illnesses to spread. No single person can solve this, the whole society must get involved, including by staging protests, if we want to solve this.”
18. Various of rubbish behind barrier
STORYLINE:
Plastic bottles, rusty barrels and even old refrigerators are among the tons of garbage clogging rivers in Bosnia.

On the Drina River, which flows between Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia, garbage is stuck behind a trash barrier near a key hydroelectric power plant, forming huge rubbish islands that float on the surface.

“In recent days, we had a lot of rainfall and floods (across the Western Balkans), a huge inflow of water from (the Drina’s tributaries in) Montenegro which is now, fortunately, subsiding,” said Dejan Furtula of the environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad.

“Unfortunately, the inflow of garbage has not ceased,” he added.

The torrential rains and unseasonably warm weather over the past week have caused many rivers and streams in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro to overflow, flooding the surrounding areas and forcing scores of people from their homes.

Temperatures dropped in many areas on Friday as rain turned into snow.

Some 10,000 cubic meters of waste are estimated to have amassed in recent days in the Drina River behind the trash barrier near Visegrad, Furtula said.

The same amount was pulled out of the river in recent years, a task that on average takes up to six months.

Each year, the waste ends up at the municipal landfill site in Visegrad which, according to Furtula, does not have sufficient capacity to handle the city’s waste.







Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...