Tadić: Solution for hazardous waste has been waiting for 20 years, no one is listening

As we know, Croatia does not have a systematic solution for the disposal of hazardous waste, from medical waste and old medicines, through paints and oils, to PFAS compounds found in illegal and legal landfills across the country. And while the public is occasionally alarmed by news about microplastics or ‘forever chemicals’ in the soil, a systematic solution to the problem remains outside public discussion, until something like the case in Gospić occurs.

However, for our problems, senior research associate at the Ruđer Bošković Institute and former parliamentary representative Tonči Tadić claims to have a solution that has existed for almost two decades, but that bureaucratic inertia and public resistance systematically push it aside.

Tadić emphasizes that he is not acting on behalf of the Government or any state institution, but is presenting a personal initiative that he has been trying to channel to the authorities for years.

Idea as old as the problem

Tadić first publicly presented the idea of acquiring a plasma gasification plant in 2008 in Split, together with the late Jakša Miličić. The starting point was the realization that Croatia has no facility capable of permanently solving hazardous waste, while the existing infrastructure, from incinerators to landfills, only addresses part of the problem, and not adequately.

According to him, incinerators leave ash and slag that can account for up to 30 percent of the original volume of waste and which need to be further disposed of. Plasma gasification, he says, works differently: at temperatures above 2000 degrees Celsius, it breaks down compounds into individual atoms, including PFAS. The exhaust gases then undergo fractional distillation, while the remaining synthetic gas is used to power a 30-megawatt gas turbine, which only powers the facility.

The goal, emphasizes Tadić, is not to produce electricity for the market, but to completely eliminate hazardous waste, which is why, he claims, the initial investment cost should not be a decisive argument against the project.

What remains in the reactor resembles lava and exits the facility as vitrified mass, purple glass in which the hazardous residue is permanently and safely isolated. According to Tadić, this residue constitutes only a few percent of the original volume of waste.

Inexhaustible ‘raw material’

Tadić warns that the quantities of waste that such a facility could process are enormous. Along with a continuous influx of medical waste, old medicines, paints, and oils for which Croatia currently has no adequate solution, there are also deposits of PFAS compounds that have been lying in existing landfills across the country for decades, accumulated during a time when this type of pollution was not taken into account. According to his estimate, such an investment would have a permanent and long-term purpose, rather than being a one-time project, and the location of the future facility, he says, is not crucial; it can, he claims, also be built in Jakuševac.

Why the idea has been sitting in a drawer for 20 years

When asked why the proposal was not accepted back in 2008, Tadić cites as a formal reason the fact that at that time a similar technology was not present in Europe. He believes that such an argument reflects bureaucratic lethargy, rather than a real technical or economic obstacle. He distinguishes between types of waste: conventional recycling systems, he says, adequately address plastic, paper, bio-waste, and glass, while batteries, medicines, old oils, and hazardous medical waste remain without a systematic solution, and it is precisely for such waste, Tadić claims, that plasma gasification is intended.

Tadić cites as an international precedent the facility in Utashinai on Hokkaido, Japan, created through the collaboration of Westinghouse and Hitachi, as well as a report from a working group in Sacramento, USA, which, according to him, confirmed the effectiveness of this technology. He believes that, given the origin of the technology, the American and Japanese embassies could provide support for a potential acquisition.

Tadić also warns of two strong interest groups that, according to his experience, would oppose any serious project in the waste management sector. These are, he says, entrepreneurs who profit from the current state and the associated bureaucracy, and associations that are fundamentally opposed to any infrastructural intervention.

As an illustration of obstruction patterns, he cites the continuous emergence of new objections regarding locations such as Slavonski Brod, as well as the risk that, in the event of a public procurement announcement, companies with a history of inadequate waste management would become involved in the process, with the aim of delaying it.

Open question

Today, Tadić promotes this idea solely at the level of personal initiative, trying to pass information on to members of the Government. He himself admits that the first obstacle to realization would likely be public procurement, while the question of the location of the facility, as with any similar project in Croatia, remains politically the most sensitive. Whether plasma gasification will ever leave the drawer it was placed in back in 2008 remains an open question.