Taraba Nixes Garbage Disposal Project in Sala, Assessments to Start Over

Sala/Bratislava, October 7 (TASR) - Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (SNS nominee) overrode the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) decision that had originally greenlighted the building of a garbage disposal plant in the town of Sala (Nitra region), which means that the entire evaluation process will start over again, the Environment Ministry announced on Monday. It was a company called ewia that back in 2019 filed an application with the Environment Ministry to build a garbage disposal plant in Sala. The facility was proposed to dispose of 130,000 tonnes of garbage annually and create 200 jobs. The ministry under Jan Budaj (2020-23) approved the project and it received its EIA clearance on January 13, 2023. The ministry under the previous leadership stated that Slovakia will urgently need three high-capacity and modern garbage disposal plants, also due to prerequisites of the European legislation, due to come into effect as of 2035. "After examining the whole case, my impression is that the application for the environmental assessment lacked another relevant, alternative variant for public evaluation," stated Taraba. "The applicant has essentially failed to offer two different alternatives that might differ in their impacts on the environment," he added. Hence, the entire assessment process is slated to start from scratch. mf/mcs