Lääne Elu will publish the most read stories again in 2023. One of them is the article “Illegal waste transport from Märjamaa to Läänemaa was expensive”, published on November 25.
Garbage brought from Märjamaa to Läänemaa. Commission on the Environment
The orderly removal of cleaning waste from his father’s house in Märjamaa cost one Tallinn resident more than seven times more than he would have had to pay for their official delivery.
At the beginning of November the owner of the village of Ridala Lannuste reported to the environmental commission a load of rubbish found on his land. In the ditch along the village road there was a pile of household waste: old furniture, small electronic devices, packaging, magazines, newspapers, wooden boards, interior doors, films, fabrics, shoes and other similar things.
Liina Simpson, head of the Environmental Board’s Läänemaa office, advised the landowner not to start cleaning immediately, but to wait until officials have cleaned up the mess. Immediately there were reports of piles of rubbish suddenly appearing on other roadsides in the same area. “Each site contained about the equivalent of a trailer of waste,” Simpson said. The rubbish heaps at the bank and in the village of Lannuste contained more or less the same stuff, while at Haeska it was mostly sawdust packed in bags.
This time it went so well that environmental officials who came there found references to a family in all these places. “In every pile of rubbish we found traces of members of the same family or the family’s residence. It was a Tallinn address. It turned out that the family also owns a house in Märjamaa. The old magazines with the Tallinn address were probably brought to Märjamaa to start the fire,” Simpson said.
Just over a week after the discovery of the rubbish, the man from the capital had to report to environmental officers. “This person cleaned a house in Märjamaa and gave the rubbish to an acquaintance with whom he had cleaned the house to take it away. “An acquaintance, whom the owner of the rubbish refused to name, took the rubbish to three places several in Läänemaa,” Simpson said.
On this occasion, according to Simpson, it was possible to discover the owner of the garbage. “I would like to point out that the owner of the waste is also responsible for his waste. If the waste is not taken directly to the waste collection station and ends up in the forest, in addition to the person who threw it into the forest, the owner is also responsible ,” explains Simpson.
On this occasion, according to Simpson, it was a good person who admitted his mistake and compensated for the damage. “The only thing a person could do to correct the consequences of his act was to clean up the waste. They were taken to the Läänemaa waste plant, where the waste transfer cost around 90 euros,” Simpson said.
However, the cost of trash given to a friend to take away wasn’t limited to that. “According to the waste law, a person was fined 600 euros for depositing waste outside the landfill,” said the head of the Environmental Board’s Läänemaa office. He added that the maximum fine for a natural person for such an act is 800 euros.
What makes the Parila landfill particularly silly is the fact that almost everything that ends up in the Läänemaa ditches is also received by the Märjamaa waste disposal station.
Simpson wants to remind people to first make sure who they are giving their trash to and whether it will end up in a landfill. “If you give your waste to a contractor operating without a permit, there is a risk that, if the waste ends up in the wrong place, you could be held liable. In addition to the fine, the culprit must arrange for the waste to be disposed of at a recycling station waste collection,” Simpson explained. Therefore, a rubbish removal service that initially seemed affordable can end up costing a person a lot.
The Waste Act obliges the sender of the waste to verify whether the recipient of the waste is acting legally. “As a rule, an entrepreneur operating informally is recognized by the fact that when promoting he reveals only his phone number and his name,” Simpson said.
It is well known that money can be obtained with metal. “A surprising number of types of waste can be returned for free: packaging, paper and cardboard (old newspapers), hazardous waste from private homes (paints, aerosols, batteries and accumulators, medicines, etc.) and electrical and electronic waste (refrigerator , monitors, cables, wires, etc.),” the environmental manager listed.
According to Simpson, these cases of waste have become fewer and fewer in recent decades. “There’s also less trash burning,” she said. In her opinion, organized waste transportation and also increased awareness contribute significantly to this. However, environmental officials have to deal with a couple of such stories every year. The Environment Agency is very grateful to the community of Parila, who quickly received information about the remaining piles of rubbish, so that they could be collected in one incident based on the material found in the rubbish.
How to deal with garbage
- Take your trash to the garbage station.
- When you ask a trusted friend for help, keep the check.
- Use the services of reputable companies that have a waste permit.
2023-12-30 15:13:53
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