Young people burn electronic waste at the Agbogbloshie dumpsite in Accra, Ghana, on November 29, 2017. © Cristina Aldehuela, AFP
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Spain cracks down on illegal imports of Italian waste
Spanish police said on Tuesday that they had dismantled a network that made millions by illegally importing and dumping tens of thousands of tons of partially toxic waste from Italy, making 15 arrests.
The Guardia Civil began investigating after detecting urban waste that had entered Spain with false documents and was destined for landfills without being treated as required by law.
They discovered several companies based in the Catalonia and Castilla-La Mancha regions contracted by Italian waste management companies to receive and dispose of the waste.
This allowed the Italian-based companies to evade taxes and save costs, in violation of environmental rules which stipulate that each country must deal with its own waste, the Guardia Civil said in a statement.
The organization has earned more than 19 million euros (US$19.5 million) and dumped more than 40,000 tons of waste in Spanish landfills a year since 2021, the Guardia Civil estimated.
The landfills in the provinces of Tarragona and Cuenca received “all types of urban waste... including hazardous and toxic waste”, potentially putting local ecosystems and public health at risk.
The European Union has prioritized the fight against environmental crime networks, which, according to the Guardia Civil, is the fourth largest organized criminal activity in the world, after drug smuggling, human trafficking, and counterfeiting.
im/gv
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