President János Áder has written to his Ukrainian and Romanian counterparts complaining about large quantities of plastic bottles and other waste coming into Hungary via the Tisza and Szamos rivers.
According to MTI, President Áder asked Volodymyr Zelensky and Klaus Iohannis to intervene to get the authorities to deal with the matter. The letters posted to the Office of the President’s website note that floods sent currently epidemiologically dangerous waste over the borders, with an impact on fishing and tourism as well as on wildlife.
The president noted the Hungarian government had turned to the authorities of the neighboring countries several times to little avail. The main problem is waste dumping in the floodplains of rivers, he added.
The Tisza has been encumbered by 2,258 cubic meters of solid waste so far this year, President Áder wrote. Fully 938 cubic meters of waste was removed from Szamos on June 13. “I find it disappointing that the pollution … has not ceased,” the president wrote, adding that the waste posed a lasting threat to the rivers’ fragile ecosystem. President Áder said this was not worthy of European standards.
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