September the 9th, 2026 – The hazardous waste scandal that has taken Lika and Croatia by storm shows no sign of dying down, but few realise Croatia actually imports 870,000 tonnes of waste each year. The question is: Why?
If Croatia has truly become Europe’s dumping ground, the 2024 statistics don’t really show it: about 90,000 more tonnes of waste actually left the country than entered it. However, that isn’t enough proof that there are no problems to speak of. The same system in which a Croatian factory legally imports scrap iron, paper or waste wood as raw material can be abused so that hazardous waste ends up buried in Lika.
Slobodan Mufic reports for Index that according to data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Green Transition, after Croatia’s entry into the European Union back in July 2013, an increase in waste imports was recorded, but exports also continuously grew. Since 2015, waste imports have only twice exceeded exports on an annual basis, and then by roughly five percent. As such, back in 2024, the last year for which official data exists, Croatia imported 871,255 tonnes of waste, of which about 7,100 tonnes of hazardous waste with prior approval. Five Croatian companies carried out the import of hazardous waste in 2024: C.I.A.K., Holcim, NEXE, Premifab and Spectra-Media. The largest part of the imported non-hazardous waste, more than half, consists of metal, paper, cardboard and wood that domestic companies process and use as secondary raw material in production.
During the same year, 961,442 tonnes of waste were exported from Croatia, of which hazardous waste accounted for 26,851 tonnes, or 2.8 percent of the total quantity. All exported hazardous waste ended up in other European Union member states, mostly in Austria, Germany, Poland and Hungary.
it isn’t possible for croatia to entirely ban waste imports
It should be emphasised that Croatia cannot simply ban the import of all types of waste from other EU member states, nor would that be good for Croatian industry. Cross-border waste shipments within the EU are regulated by European rules. Waste is considered goods and no EU Member State can prevent (by way of a general ban) what European Union regulations currently allow. As of the 21st of May 2026, the new EU Regulation 2024/1157 on waste shipments applies, which introduces different cross-border regimes depending on the type of waste and whether the waste is destined for disposal or recovery (reuse of waste as raw material or energy source). For waste intended for disposal, shipments are in principle prohibited, unless the competent authorities give consent. For waste going for recovery there is a prior consent procedure, depending on the degree of toxicity.
Recovery means that the waste is directed to some useful purpose such as recycling, composting or incineration and thereby replaces material or energy that would otherwise have to be obtained from other sources. Disposal means finally removing the waste at a landfill, storage facility or incinerator without energy recovery. Croatia, however, does not have to accept every waste that someone wants to send it. The law already prohibits some categories, for example the delivery of hazardous waste and mixed municipal waste for disposal, and gives the minister the possibility to additionally restrict certain flows if they endanger the domestic waste management system or public health.
why does croatia even need imported waste?
A ban on waste imports would also be harmful to Croatian industry. Existing energy recovery facilities alone have permitted capacities of almost 400,000 tonnes per year, and the largest consumers are cement plants. Našice’s NEXE energy-recovered 58,000 tonnes of waste in 2023 alone, Holcim in Koromačno today consumes tens of thousands of tonnes and plans to reach around 60,000 tonnes per year, while CEMEX in Kaštel Sućurac and Solin already obtains more than a third of the energy for cement from alternative fuels.
Cement plants do not need just any rubbish, but fuel from waste of precisely defined properties. Every shipment must meet quality and composition criteria, including calorific value and content of moisture, chlorine, sulphur and heavy metals, and facilities that incinerate waste are subject to special rules on combustion temperature, process monitoring and emission limit values.
In addition, low-quality or hazardous waste could damage the kilns. The estimate is that from the total municipal waste, of which Croatia collects around 1.9 million tonnes annually, only about 20 percent could become sufficiently high-quality fuel for existing facilities. This also explains the apparent paradox: Croatia can simultaneously have too much of its own waste and import the waste that industry needs. It does not matter to a factory where the scrap iron obtained waste status. What matters is how much it costs, what quality it is, whether it suits its process and whether it can obtain it in sufficient quantity.
the difference between legal trade and illegal disposal
That’s why the entire question of waste imports doesn’t really have a straightforward answer. The import of clean metal waste into a Croatian foundry and the illegal burial of hazardous waste are two completely different things. The first can reduce the consumption of primary raw materials and energy and represents a desirable part of the circular economy. The second is the opposite of the economy and constitutes a criminal offence. The grey area begins precisely between the word “recovery” on the document and what actually happened to the waste. A shipment can neatly and legally cross the border, arrive at a registered entity and still end up completely differently from what the documentation suggests. Exactly such an appearance of legality occurred in Gospić.
Regardless of the State Inspectorate’s data that from 2020 to 2025 the environmental protection inspection examined a total of 2,610 shipments and discovered as many as 1,611 illegal waste shipments, or almost 62 percent, the system was not entirely without supervision.
The problem was that supervision, permits and existing documentation did not ensure reliable tracking of the movement of waste to final treatment and did not prevent enormous quantities of waste from ending up where they should not have. Likewise, this does not mean that 62 percent of the total waste entering Croatia is illegal. Inspection controls are targeted, cover imports, exports and transit, and are also carried out subsequently at companies. An illegal shipment can refer to various offences, including incorrect classification or documentation. Not every such case is criminally similar to the current one in Gospić.
Europe and specifically Croatia are currently trying to close the space in which legitimate waste trade can turn into a cover for illegal disposal. New European rules strengthen digital tracking of cross-border shipments, and an important change is also coming in Croatia from tomorrow.
who took it first isn’t important, but who resolved it last is…
The Ordinance on amendments and supplements to the Ordinance on waste management was published on 31 August and enters into force tomorrow – 8 September. The waste recipient will have to provide the consignor with data on final treatment: the name and PIN of the final processor, their authorisation for treatment of the shipment, the date of completion of treatment and the final treatment procedure.
This goes straight to the heart of the problem exposed by the scandal in Gospić: it should no longer be enough to prove to whom the waste was handed over at the first step, but what happened to it at the last. But even the best electronic form will not help if the data are not checked, if capacities exist only on paper or if the inspection reacts only when tens of thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste are already underground. Tracking the movement of waste is not filing papers in a binder, but the state’s ability to determine for every disputed tonne where it ended up.
