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With its clear green water, the Drina River flows through the mountains on the border between Bosnia and Serbia.
Typically, the river in eastern Bosnia is one of Europe’s jewels, attracting rowers from all over the continent.
In recent years, Drina has mutilated plastic and other waste. Now the situation is particularly dramatic after a lot of rain has carried garbage down the river.
Aerial photo shows what the AP news agency describes as “islands of plastic” in front of the power station’s dam.
Aerial photos show the huge amounts of plastic bottles, barrels, planks and other rubbish that have accumulated in front of the Visegrad Dam.
Photo: Eldar Emric / AP
Huge trash can
– This is a disaster. People throw everything into the river. Not just plastic, there are dead animals, barrels, you can find everything there, says Aleksandar Mladic, who lives in Visegrad.
Each year, Visegrad removes between 6,000 and 8,000 cubic meters of garbage from Drina.
8000 cubic meters correspond to a 20x20x20 meter cube, full of plastic and other waste.
And it is only in Visegrad. According to local people, hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage are dumped in Drina every year,
Although the situation is most serious in Drina, near Visegrad, plastic and other rubbish is a problem in the rivers of the Balkans.
Close-up of parts of the garbage in the Visegrad Dam.
Photo: Eldar Emric / AP
Huge proportions
– This is a daunting problem, says Dejan Furtula at the local environmental organization Eko Centar Visegrad.
“I urge the institutions and everyone else to help with the cleanup,” he told AFP.
Microplastics and other toxins from the waste now end up in the food chain and threaten both wildlife and people along the river, Furtula says.
– The entire ecosystem is in danger. All of us who live here eat fish, he says.
Along the Bosna River in central Bosnia, plastic and garbage hang from the trees.
Photo: Eldar Emric / AP
Illegal landfills
Some of the garbage in Drina comes from neighboring Serbia and Montenegro, which are struggling with the economy and where production and employment considerations often take precedence over environmental considerations.
Serbia also recently experienced something similar when huge amounts of garbage accumulated in one of the country’s lakes, NTB writes.
There are illegal dumps all over the country and litter on the roads and in the wild is common.
Special vessels
Drina’s cleaning job received a welcome contribution from a German company this week, in the form of a special vessel called the Collectix.
One of the founders of the Everwave company, Clemens Feigl, was surprised by the photos he saw of Drina and decided to contribute to the cleanup.
In the next few days we will try to collect as much garbage as possible from the water. We will continue for 14 days and do our best, he says.
