'Big embarrassment': Balkan river becomes floating rubbish dump

A river in the Balkans, known for its stunning natural beauty, has been transformed into a giant floating rubbish heap, amid a spell of bad weather, worsened by long-running mismanagement.  

Tonnes of plastic bottles, rusty barrels, used tires, household appliances, driftwood and other waste have piled up behind a barrier in the Drina River in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which snakes through forested hills. 

Much of this rubbish was dumped in poorly regulated riverside landfills or directly into the waterways that flow across three countries in the Balkans, accumulating behind the fencing as it flows downstream. 

The barrier installed by a Bosnian hydroelectric plant, a few kilometres upstream from its dam near Visegrad, a city in eastern Bosnia that has unwillingly been turned into a waste site, local environmental activists complain.

Heavy rain and unseasonably warm weather over the past week have caused many waterways in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro to overflow, flooding near-by areas and forcing scores of people from their homes. 

Dejan Furtula of the environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad said “the huge inflow of garbage” was not stopping, despite torrential rainfall and floods subsiding. 

The Drina River runs 346 kilometres from the mountainous northwestern Montenegro through Serbia and Bosnia. Many of its tributaries are known for their emerald colour and breath-taking scenery.

Some 10,000 cubic meters of waste are estimated to have amassed behind the Drina River's rubbish barrier in recent days, Furtula said. 

The same amount was pulled in recent years from the river.

Cleaning up the waste is not the end of the issue.  

Removing the rubbish takes on average up to six months. But it ends up at a local landfill in Visegrad, which