Polish authorities have accomplished the repatriation of 7.2 tonnes of illegal waste back to Germany. The Main Environmental Protection Inspectorate (GIOŚ) in Poland

revealed this development, following the detection of an illicit waste shipment from a German wind farm earlier this year. The customs office in Gorzów, a city in western Poland, alerted environmental inspectors in April about this smuggling operation. The shipping company involved failed to provide adequate information regarding the waste in their documents, according to officials.

Upon investigation, it was discovered that the German company had falsely claimed to transport "non-dangerous" waste, when in reality, the shipment contained a mixture of plastics-based waste, fibreglass, along with pieces of wood and metal. Additionally, the transport company neglected to notify both Polish and German authorities about the planned cross-border waste transport and failed to acquire the necessary permits, rendering the shipment illegal.

GIOŚ promptly informed the relevant German public agency about this illegal transport and requested the removal of the waste from Polish territory. On August 16, Germany's SBB Sonderabfallgesellschaft Brandenburg/Berlin mbH agency successfully collected and transported the 7.2 tonnes of waste back to Germany. This waste originated from the dismantling of a wind turbine as part of a German wind farm project. Photo by Panek, Wikimedia commons.