Tens of thousands of people marched through Zagreb on Saturday, demanding that Croatia’s government urgently remove more than 30,000 tonnes of hazardous waste buried near Gospić in the mountainous Lika region.
The waste includes medical and industrial material brought from elsewhere in the European Union since 2023. The protest has grown into a broader challenge to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković’s government, which opponents accuse of delaying action and concealing the pollution’s scale.
Why the cleanup is disputed
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković visited the site last week and said the government had selected a contractor to begin the first phase of the cleanup. Croatian officials have also said soil and water tests around Gospić showed no contamination.
That assurance conflicts with an assessment published last month by Croatia’s anticorruption agency, which found elevated metal levels in soil and detected PFAS, chemicals known for persisting in the environment, in nearby groundwater.
A scandal reaching beyond Gospić
The rally in Zagreb’s main square drew lawmakers from the centre-left Social Democratic Party and the anticorruption party Most, as well as actor Rade Šerbedžija. Its broad support reflected anger that extended beyond a single political faction.
Environmental experts said the damage has remained local so far but warned that the region’s porous terrain and rivers could carry pollutants towards the Adriatic Sea, on which local tourism depends. Prosecutors are continuing to investigate a Croatian company accused of burying toxic waste at several sites beyond Gospić.
What protesters are demanding
Organisers said authorities should publish a complete cleanup plan with binding deadlines within 20 days and remove all buried waste within three months. Many protesters said they no longer trusted official explanations for how the waste remained undiscovered.
Vjekoslav Busic of the Gospic Is Our Home community group said the failure raised questions about the institutions and officials that allowed the pollution to continue. Demonstrator Ivan Rittinger described the situation as a crime rather than a tragedy.
What happens next
The government has selected a contractor to begin removing the waste, while prosecutors continue investigating the alleged dumping at multiple sites.
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